


Freeze!

by Snowy181



Category: Original Work
Genre: Battle, Fantasy, Fighting, Fights, Gen, IcePowers, Magic, School, battleschool, highschool, magicalpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 51
Words: 55,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowy181/pseuds/Snowy181
Summary: Hi. I'm Winter. I'm about to start at -what people call- a 'battle school'. The school basically teaches you how to fight with magical powers that you can gain from something called a 'pendant'. Some people may already have pendants while others do not. Fun fact, some people are born with magical powers... I'm one of them.So, I guess... Join me and my twin, Summer, on our adventure in our new school.
Kudos: 1





	1. School

I sluggishly walk towards  _ The Battle Academy For The Gifted _ . Each step a dread, but each a must. I trail behind my happy sister, walking with a bounce in her step. “Winter, hurry up!” Summer shouts from up ahead, “otherwise, we’re going to be late! And I don’t like being late!”

I sigh in response. Who would be so cheerful being trapped and chained in a building for seven hours? I guess Summer, but who else?

We eventually make it to school and, shockingly, have a lot of time left. We swivel through crowds full of people giggling, whispering and shouting, and somehow manage to find the office. Thankfully with no help.

When we enter the room, the desk guy greets us, “you’re the new students, I suppose?”

“Yeah, how do you know?” Summer responds, voicing the question lingering in my head.

“Well, you both do stand out quite a bit,” he chuckles.

“Right…” she can’t really tell whether that’s an insult or not. Maybe she sees this as a good thing, though I feel it means we’re weird. Can’t blame him though, we’re dressed like we live in opposite hemispheres. “Anyways, do you have our schedules?”

“No, today you get a free-roaming day, tomorrow you have to fight to figure out what rank you are, then you can come and collect your schedules.”

“Okay, does this mean classes are in ranks?”

“Yes, now I suggest you go have a wander around. Have a nice day.”

“Yeah, you too.” With that said, we take our leave.

Wandering around is fun until you get lost… or bored.

A bell rings. That’s the fifth bell that’s rung. If I’m right, it means it’s lunchtime. When we turn towards the next hall, students are piling out of classrooms. “Let’s follow them,” Summer suggests.

So that we did, we end up in the canteen. Lovely, food for the tummy. We buy food then sit down on an empty table. 

A guy in black comes towards us, “h-hi…” he whispers, barely audible due to the shouts and screams of the people around us. He continues saying things, but loudness and him talking to the floor, cause us to not be able to understand him.

“Please speak up,” Summer encourages.

The guy nods and tries again, “c-can I sit here?” Summer nods. He looks relief and quickly takes a seat on one side of Summer, I sat on the other side.

“So what’s your name?” she asks. He sinks into his chair when I look at him, expecting an answer. Summer realises this and covers my eye, as the other is already covered with my hair. “You’re glaring at him, stop it!” she whispers to me.

“It’s… i-it’s…” he mumbles the rest. He goes again and manages to squeaks out, “N-Nero.”

“Hello, Nero. I’m Summer and this is my sister, Winter.”

“Y-you’re new?”

“Yes.”

“What are your pendants?”

“Why does this matter to you?” I attempt to joke, it dies pretty quickly, Nero becomes upset and distress. “I didn’t-”

Summer slaps me and cheers Nero up by answering his question, “mine is a common fire pendant, you know, fire powers,” Nero smiles, but it’s tainted. 

Summer slaps me again, prompting me to respond, “snowflake pendant, uncommon, ice powers.” He probably deems us friendly and beams an actual smile.

“What about you?” Summer inquires.

“I-it’s a rare pendant, do things with shadows, l-like controlling them a-and I can create things with it,” he somehow says that in a somewhat audible volume. He has a pretty nice pendant, one that’s quite rare too. 

Rarity of a pendant ranges from one of a kind and common. Ultra rare, rare and uncommon are between them. The rarer the pendant, the harder it is to get it.

Lunch is close to ending and Nero is nice enough to show us to a place called the Arena, a place we can train in for tomorrow.


	2. Getting a Job

After school, Summer drags me to a job interview at a restaurant called Delicioso. Did I agree to this? No, I did not. Nevertheless, we’re poor and running on our limited savings. I’m grateful that Summer got us a job, but it would be nice if she told me.

The interview goes well and we get a job. 

We work Tuesday - Thursday, 4pm - 8pm. On Saturday, it’s 10am - 2pm.

We leave to go home. Our house is small and a bit run down but it’s home, I guess. Our lovely cat is waiting for us at home. 

As we walk, my thoughts wander to tomorrow, I guess I’m worried, maybe nervous? At least the thought of money is off my mind for now.

Time to save up in case of an emergency… again. 


	3. Battle!

Today is the day, Summer and I enter into the middle of the Arena. “Quite big, lots of space it means,” Summer comments.

We quickly exit and go into the waiting room. It has a big screen that allows us to watch what’s going on outside. I turn it on and we watch the screen switch between cameras. People are coming in and finding seats. They’re in groups that have common characteristics.

Two are quiet, though one has people being more interested in their books than the world around them. Two are loud and shouting, one covered in jewellery and expensive clothing. And the last two are walking in lines and acting proper, some are talking but it’s not in whispers or shouts, just in normal volume.

When everyone has settled, a voice booms across the whole Arena, coming out of speakers, “WELCOME EVERYONE! TODAY WE HAVE TWO NEWCOMERS! FIRST UP, WE HAVE SUMMER!”

“Welp, guess I gotta go, good luck to you,” Summer says.

“Mm, yeah, good luck to you too,” I reply. I turn my head back to the screen. It soon shows Summer walking out to the middle.

“SO OUR FIRST MATCH OF THE DAY IS SUMMER VERSES DAFFY OF THE FLYS!” the announcer shouts, but no one turns up. After a few minutes, a person is pushed out of the door. He stumbles a bit then manages to stable himself, his eyes are darting around, avoiding Summer’s figure, his hands are fidgeting.

“LET’S SPIN THE WHEEL OF THE BATTLE ARENA!” the announcer shouts, then he adds, “we need a shorter name for that… maybe WOTBA?” He clears his throat and the wheel is spun. “IT LANDS ON HILLS!” The ground starts arching to create hills from the ground. Summer in the middle of two while Daffy is on top of one. “AND GO!!!!”

Summer rushes up the hill to Daffy, “I-I quit!” he squeaks out. She stops and stares in confusion. 

Most of the crowd boos and starts throwing things at Daffy, ranging from popcorn to drinks. Some narrowly avoid Summer. “OOO, SEEMS LIKE THE CROWD DOESN’T LIKE THAT!! THOUGH WE CAN’T FORCE HIM TO FIGHT PLUS HE’S A FLY. ANYWAYS, SUMMER WINS BECAUSE HER OPPONENT HAS SURRENDERED” Daffy hightails it out, trying to not get hit as objects keep flying towards him. The hills sink into the ground.

“NEXT IS BAILEY OF THE SHARKS!” the group full of loud people, not the one drenched in expensive things, cheer.

A tall guy walks out, does a once over on Summer and opens his mouth to jeer at her, “you’ve gotta be kidding me! I’m wasting my time by having to fight a puny weakling?!”

Her mouth falls open, which is quickly closed and changes into a snarl. “I’m not a weakling! You’re just a big buffoon!” she shoots back, the audience is roaring with laughter at her insult.

“NOW, NOW, LET’S NOT GET TOO IMPATIENT. THE WOTBA IS ABOUT TO BE SPUN!” More glares and remarks are made, even while the announcer was talking. “IT’S LANDED ON GRASS FIELD! READY? GO, GO, GO!” Grass grows and soon covers the whole area.

Bailey opens his mouth once more but is met with a blast of fire. Summer, who’s infuriated, did not hold back, burning him to a crisp. She stops, “who’s the weakling now?!” and continues with her roasting.

“OOOO, OUCH! THAT’S GOTTA BURN! SUMMER WINS. NEXT IS ETHAN OF THE EAGLES!!”

The grass sinks back down, while Bailey quickly strides out, his clothes burnt yet somehow stays intact. Another guy takes the stage. His glasses reflect the sun, giving his eyes a more pointed look than it is. He adjusts his hoodie and mutters to himself.

“WOTBA IS SPUN AND IT LANDED ON DESERT!” Sand starts to form and soon the whole field is covered. “START!!”

Ethan glares at Summer and she stares at him. Summer shoots a fireball at Ethan when she realises that he’s not going to do anything. He quickly dodges and continues with just observing. She sends fireballs at him and he continues to dodge.

When it was evident that the match is going nowhere, it wasn’t a very long wait, Summer and Ethan decide to resort to different measures. Ethan goes offensive and Summer changes to fighting close range. 

Ethan mutters something again and uses his wolf pendant to turn into a wolf, his glasses now on his snout. Summer creates a fire sword. She has a hard time attacking and dodging a lunging wolf.

He stops to take a breath and Summer takes it as her chance to attack, instead of using her sword, she kicks sand into his face. He spits the sand out of his mouth but couldn’t get it out of his eyes. He transforms back into a human and tries to rub the sand out of his eyes, rapidly mumbling. Summer goes to attack and he grumbles, “I surrender, can’t see after that petty move you’ve made, smart but annoyingly petty.”

“AND SUMMER WINS! WE’RE GETTING SOME ACTIONS, FOLKS!” Ethan stumbles out of the grounds, refusing to accept help from Summer. “NOW IT’S A FIGHT WITH LIAM OF THE LIONS!”

A man with quite a bit of muscle comes out, he gives Summer a charming smile and greets her, “Hello, I am Liam. I wish to have a nice fight with you as I am a fellow fire pendant user.”

“Hi, I’m Summer, I too wish to have a fun fight with you too!” she replies, I won’t be surprised if she’s happy because this guy seems… nice? And normal? I honestly can’t tell, maybe having a fire pendant is the reason.

“WOTBA HAS LANDED ON FROZEN LAKE!” Summer’s face changes from joy to horror.

“I don’t know how to skate, that’s Winter’s thing!” she shouts as the ground is frozen over and underneath the ice, water could be seen. Liam chuckles in response and skates around Summer to show off a bit. She huffs and tries to move but slips over. The lot of people in the stands laughs, her face goes a bit red.

“SEEMS LIKE SUMMER’S ALREADY FALLEN! BATTLE START!”

“Here,” Liam says as he offers his hand to Summer, she looks at it suspiciously, “I want a fair fight.” She accepts and stands, wobbling a bit.

“Thank-,” she slips again. Giving up, she starts firing at Liam from her position. He gracefully skates around, dodging each fireball with ease. When the fire flew over the ice, it melts, causing giant holes. Liam starts blasting back.

The fight goes on for a while, each person sending fire to the other. Summer has not fallen into a hole. Now, she’s standing, slightly unbalanced but standing nonetheless. 

After a few more minutes of more fireballs, Liam accidentally makes a misstep and falls into the icy water. He swims up and crawls out, shaking from the cold. “Are you okay?” Summer shouts from her rigged position.

“I-I surrender,” Liam shivers, she tries to help him but slips over, narrowly missing a hole, though cracks can be clearly seen underneath her.

The ground becomes concrete again and nurses come out and help Liam, covering him with a blanket. Summer gets up, happy that there’s no more ice, but slightly tired.

“NOW IT’S SUMMER VERSES LEAH OF THE PHOENIX!!”

An overjoy lady saunters out with a bounce, she congratulates Summer, “Good job on beating Liam! You should learn to skate and everything, but that’s besides the point!” She leans in close to her and loudly whispers, “I’m gonna be honest but you should probably surrender so you can join the Phoenixes, the Dragons aren’t people you want to be around, and you seem like a good person, you won’t really fit in very well.” Summer eyes her skeptically. “Guess I’ll take that as a no…”

“TIME TO SPIN, SPIN, SPIN!! ANDDD IT HAS LANDED ON MAZE!! TRY NOT TO GET LOST, DEAR AUDIENCE!!” Concrete walls rise from the ground, Summer is lost but luckily Leah is nowhere to be found.

Being tired from the last fight, she walks cautiously around, hiding behind walls until she’s certain that Leah is not around the corner.

Too bad it didn’t work very well.

Roots come flooding in from one side and Summer turns and runs. She’s too slow and one of the roots snatch her up and takes her to Leah, who’s sitting on top of a tree that she has created. “Hello~!” she giggles. The root moves closer. “Mind if I take this?” she yanks Summer’s pendant and drops her. Some roots go down to catch Summer. “Just say that you surrender!” she yells down.

Summer, who may or may not have heard, does not say that she surrenders and blasts fire from her hands, slowing her down and she lands safely. While she falls slowly, the announcer exclaims, “WHAT’S THIS?? SUMMER STILL HAS FIRE IN HER?!” Leah has a look of bewilderment hanging on her face.

Summer sends a smirk at her and place her hands on the bark of the tree and starts heating the tree up, the leaves wilt and then die. She sends fireballs up the tree and it catches fire.

Leah’s screams could be heard from above and she plunges out of the tree. In a panic, she does nothing to break her fall and hits the ground with a loud thud. “STOP!! The teachers have come to an agreement to stop the fight as Leah has taken a huge fall.” 

Nurses come with a stretcher and place Leah on top, quickly giving Summer her pendant and take their leave.

“NOW LET US WELCOME OUR BELOVED REINING CHAMPION OF OUR SCHOOL, BIANCO OF THE DRAGONS!!!”

A man in white and grey enters the stage, he looks familiar… oh, he looks like Nero but taller and wearing white and light grey instead of black. He has white hair and eyes rather than black.

He gives Summer a pleasant smile and asks, “Are you the nice lady that was with Nero yesterday?”

“Mmm, I am, how do you know this?” she answers.

“I’m his older brother, it’s nice to know there are friendly people around this place. Anyways, let’s fight, shall we?”

“WOBTA HAS LANDED ON FOREST!” Trees start sprouting from the ground then they grow to full size and soon the whole field is covered in trees. “GOOOooo!!”

“Here I come~!” he chuckles. He runs up to Summer and starts attacking using his hands and legs. Summer rapidly evades all that is flying towards her.

She looks up and sends a fireball towards a branch, causing it to catch fire and fall. It nearly lands on Bianco but he jumps away. He quickly disappears through the cluster of trees. Instead of running to find him, she starts lighting nearby trees on fire.

Ice starts creeping on the ground towards Summer, it climbs up trees, killing the fires. She tries to walk away from the ice but nearly trips. She looks down at her feet and sees that ice has caught her thongs from behind. Tree branches rustle and she looks up and sees Bianco walking out with a smirk. “You seem to be a bit stuck. Getting cold feet?” he laughs to himself. 

Finally coming to her senses, she spreads fire around her feet. Once able to move she rushes towards him. A flame sword forming in her hand, she swings it. He dodges and goes back into the trees.

Sticks snaps, leaves crackle as Bianco circles around Summer. The sounds stop and everything seems peaceful.

Until the noise of someone landing behind Summer is heard, she turns but she’s too slow. Bianco lands a hit on her and she passed out.

“AND BIANCO HAS WON WITH A KNOCKOUT!!”

The trees shrink and then disappear. Nurses sprint to Summer with a stretcher.

Guess it’s my turn now.


	4. Fight!

The fight I had with Daffy went the same as Summer's; he surrendered the second he could. I freeze Bailey mid-sentence, then Ethan and Liam. When fighting Leah, it has gotten quite boring.

I yawn while she talks, she doesn't like that and her smile becomes more forced as her eyebrows frown. She's feeling better from her fall, or so she says.

"GRASS FIELD HAS BEEN CHOSEN BY WOTBA!! STARTTT!!!"

She brightens up, "Should I fight you? Maybe you'll fit in better with those Dragons." It doesn't matter what she says, I send an icy ball her way. She sends a tree root up, the ice hits the root and it freezes that instead of her.

Finally, someone who can do something instead of freeze up. More roots start coming up from the ground, Leah grows a tree for her to comfortably perch in as she watches. I continue to glaciate the roots.

While she's focused on me, I try to do what Bianco did. The ice starts to crawl across the ground, the grass helps cover most of the ice. It's hard not to be distracted.

The ice goes up the stump and starts freezing her feet. She panics a bit but shakes her legs to get it off. Taking this as my chance, I blast an ice ball towards her body. The ice is thicker and making it harder to crack. I climb up the tree, the only part of her body that can move is her head. I fake a smile and snatch her pendant and freeze the rest of her head before she can complain.

The grass, roots and tree disappear, I melt the ice and she walks off, visibly shivering.

"AND WINTER WINS!! NOW FOLKS, HERE'S OUR LAST RANK LEADER FIGHT, WINTER VERSES BIANCOOOOO!!!!" The crowd erupts in cheers.

Bianco comes out in all his glory, another smile plastered on his face. "Hello, hello. I assume you're the other lady from yesterday... the scary one?"

"So what if I am? You guys are a bore, the fact that this school is still open and filled with kids is a shock to me."

"Sweetheart, don't insult the school." I roll my eyes.

"AND IT HAS LANDED ON ICE!!" The field starts to freeze, from the outside going in.

"This is interesting, don't you think?" he beams. I don't respond, much to his dismay.

"START!!"

"Let's see how you do," he grins. He talks too much for my liking. How does he not get tired from smiling so much? If I do it for an hour or two, my cheeks start hurting.

He skates towards me and attacks with his fists and legs again. I move backwards. Two ice daggers form in my hands and I swing them at him. He dodges and creates his own weapon; a two-handed sword.

Our weapons continuously clash. At one point we're at a stalemate, so we push against each other and we both skate back. I then resort to long-range attacks, I chuck my daggers at him; to which he responds by skating to the side. I blast him with lots of ice, he starts cutting the ice balls in half. But soon he does begin shooting back.

When the ice doesn't hit its target, it creates icicles where it lands. The field and walls are littered with these, not really helpful when moving around.

He stops for a minute and I focus all the ice into a giant ice ball. It flies towards him, he skates towards it and ducks, narrowly avoiding the bottom.

It's my turn to take a breather, and at the worst time too.

In his haste, he skis too far, he slows down then comes at me. He attacks using his limbs again. I try to evade, though it's harder as I have gotten slower, he has barely lost his speed and motivation.

With one last hit, I lost consciousness.

Before blacking out, I hear "AND BIANCO IS STILL OUR REINING CHAMPION!!!"

Rats, I lost.


	5. Friendship Club

I wait quietly in the nurses' room. Summer and I woke up before and had to fight each other. I came out victorious, hence why I'm waiting for Summer to wake up. She slowly wakes and sits up. When she realises where she is and who's in here, she glares at me. I mumble a quick sorry and she gets out.

The door opens and I look up to see Nero. He's looking with worriedness in his eyes. "Hey..." I mumble, his expression changes and now he's beaming.

"You're both alright! Yay!" he cheers. Oh, right, I remember something.

"Am I really that scary to you?" I inquire. He jumps a bit and quickly shakes his head. I narrow my eyes, I don't believe him.

Summer laughs behind me, "Yes, Winter, you are. He'd be a sweet little toddler and you'll be the ferocious dragon burning down his village!" I roll my eyes.

"Let's go to the rank building!" he starts, then he whispers, "i-if you want to that is," Summer vigorously nods and drags me out. "Oh, first, maybe to the office. You need your schedule. Since you're both dragons, you'll be in the same class as me!" He rushes us there.

After getting it, we go to the rank buildings. The place has six buildings, one in the middle is grander than the rest. "That one is the Flys', that one is the Sharks', ..." he continues labelling them, "and that one is the Dragons'! Aka our one!" He points to the nicest one.

"What are these buildings?" Summer asks.

"Oh, right you don't know. Basically, these buildings are hangout places and people can stay overnight, but that's on the odd occasion," he explains.

"Lovely, let's-" I start but I'm interrupted by someone bumping into me. I turn around, about to give the person a mouth full. Before I could begin, I realise that the person is crying. Summer instantly rushes over to make sure everything is alright, Nero looks worried and inches closer to me.

Three people come out of the Sharks' building, they stride towards us. As they approach, the crying person shakes more and holds onto Summer for dear life and Nero inches quicker to the point where he's behind me, hidden as best as possible from the supposed Sharks. The one at the front, who I assume is the leader, questions, "Hey, mind if I were to have our... _friend_ back?"

Summer glares at them, "no, you can't. Why is he crying?"

"That doesn't matter, give him back,"

"Who are you?" I mutter.

"That doesn't matter either, now give him back! This is none of your business!" He starts getting mad. Summer whispers into the crying guy's ears and he nods and quickly runs away into the Eagle's rank building. "Hey!" the leader shouts. The goons chase after him, Summer flames the air in front of them. They come to a sudden halt, one falling onto their backside. They begin to hurl insults at Summer.

"What's going on here?!" a voice booms. We turn our heads and see Liam walking out of the Phoenix's building, Leah could be seen following after.

"She tries to set us on fire!" the goons whine.

"That's not-! Well, it is true but they were doing suspicious stuff! Like- like chasing a guy who's crying!" Summer tries to explain.

"Calm down!" Leah says she walks towards us and Liam goes to the Sharks. "So what happened?" we tell her our story and Liam's probably getting their side. I look around, but it seems like Nero has disappeared. Where did he go?

Leah and Liam move to talk and compare. The Sharks look smugly at us. Though it does not last long as another voice joins the conversation, "Who made Nero cry!?" This time it's Bianco. He approaches us, his face in a rage. Nero's holding onto his hand and following him. He points at the Sharks and they look like they want to die right then and there.

"B-Bianco, w-we didn't know y-you were coming," the leader stutters. Leah and Liam go towards Bianco and describe to him what happened. While that's going on, Nero bounces to us. He gives us a quick wink and runs back to Bianco, pretending to be upset again.

"I see..." Bianco mutters. His head snaps to the Sharks and they jump out of their skin, I chuckle quietly. Not so tough now, are they? Bianco goes from calm to explosive in a matter of seconds, "So you're the ones who made Nero cry. Do you really have a death wish?" They stumble over their words to reply. "Do you want to die right here, right now?" More stutters. "KNEEL YOU SCUM!" They whimper and obey. He stamps his feet on top of the leader's head. He continues to scream and yell.

After his scream fit is over, he peacefully walks to Nero with a smile on his face. He asks if he's better and so on. Leah and Liam scold the Sharks then escort the leader to the nurses' room.

Nero cheers up instantly, "Thanks, big brother! Come on, let's go to Friendship Club!" Bianco stiffens up at the name.

"Ooo, sounds fun! Let's!" Summer replies. She drags me and Nero does the same to Bianco, despite his cries. When your sibling forces you into random situations, you eventually give up.

We enter the building, go up a flight of stairs and turn a corner. Along the way, a guy wearing blue is asked to join. His name is _Blu_. Another brother? Probably, he's height is in between Nero and Bianco and his eyes and hair are blue.

We eventually reach a door with an ice plate engraved with the words ' _Friendship Club_ '.

I'm pushed in and sit on a cushion behind a table. The rest of us do too, except for Nero. He stands in front of the table, height superiority might be feeding his ego and joy.

He explains what we do here. It's basically a club that helps the members and outsiders become friends. He also explains the rules and points to a bright yellow poster.

It reads as follows:

**Rules!**

  * Have fun!
  * DON'T be mean!
  * DO be nice (or at least try to!)
  * NO killing or murder of any sorts!
  * NO curse words!
  * DON'T beat anyone up!
  * BE HAPPY! 



Alright, none of those are suspicious, not at all. He ends his explanation with, "please follow these rules otherwise it won't end very well to you," Okay, sure.

"Could you tell us? Or at least give us a hint?" Summer asks.

"Well, no. That's not really fun, though just keep in mind that there's a basement here that's able to keep your scream unheard to outsiders." He smiles.

"Ok, cool. Sign me and Winter up!" Summer exclaims. I look at her in horror.

"But I never agree to this?" I falter.

Bianco pats my back, "You'll eventually get used to this."

"How many people are a part of this club?" she inquires.

"Well, now we have five! Everyone in this room is a part of it, I want to try expanding to other ranks. I'm planning it but haven't done anything." I stare at Bianco, he looks away in embarrassment. Who knew that the king of the school is in a club for making friends.

"So today, we're going to have a get-to-know-you class," Nero announces, "we're going to play a game called 'Two Truths and One Lie'. As the name suggests, we say two truths and one lie, we have to figure out which is the lie," he explains, "I'll start first. Hmm... my name means black in Italian, I am Italian and my favourite food is strawberries!" His brothers pretend to not know.

"Mmm, I think... that you're Italian is the lie!" Summer guess.

Nero's face light up and he nods. "It's your turn now!"

"My turn, right! So... I have a cat called Cookies, I have fire powers and... Winter and I are not blood-related,"

"You and Winter not being blood-related is the lie," Bianco comments, "Look at the three of us," indicating him and his brother, "we're related even though we're very different,"

"Brother, it's your turn!" Nero chirps.

"Hmm..." he scratches his chin, "I killed someone, I dated a guy and I stabbed someone," I stare at him, only the second one is normal, but the other two is extreme, does that mean the second one is the lie?

"It's the first one," his blue-haired brother answers, looking at the table with an enormous amount of interest. I try to see what he's observing but only see the table. "The date with the guy is a dare I gave you and you stabbed someone because they were bullying Nero. So far you haven't killed anyone yet, as far as I know of that is." Bianco mutters something along the lines of 'There's one I want dead, but can't', maybe I heard wrong? Blu starts saying his truths and lie, "My name is Blue, I used to be an Eagle and I smashed a bottle onto a person's head." These two people in front of me are insane, I'm going to guess it's because of Nero again.

"It's the first one! There's no 'e' in your name!" Nero bubbles. "Your turn, Winter!"

"What? No thanks, I'd rather watch," I reply.

Nero's smile becomes forged and his brothers' faces darkened, " **It's your turn, Winter,** " he repeats.

"Yes, sir!" I reply hurriedly. "Ahh, I've been to Australia, I can play the piano and Summer forces -sorry, _asks_ \- me to do things," Bianco chuckles at the last one.

Summer answers with "You have been in Australia is the lie! We've never been to Australia before," she ignores the 'mistake' I made.

"Yay! That's the end!" Nero cheers. "How about we give you two a tour?"

"Sure!" Summer beams.

"I've got to go do some other things," Bianco states, he messes with Nero's hair and then takes his leave.

"I have work to do, have fun with your friends," Blu comments. He pats Nero's head and goes out the door.

"So let's start, shall we?" Nero grins.

A tour doesn't sound that bad, right?


	6. The Time The Tour Turned Terrible

In short, the tour was like hell - then again, it _was_ taking place at school... .

Let me explain what happened.

Firstly, we encountered one of those 'popular' girls. She glared at us, laughed at us and acted similar to what you'd expect from a rich, entitled brat. She kept rubbing in that we were weak and would never beat Bianco or her. She berated Nero a lot, it seemed to be about random things, what he's wearing, how he didn't deserve his pendant, that he shouldn't be allowed to be in this school, being in the third-last place and things that he couldn't control like being related to Bianco, looking like a normal human being when comparing eye and hair colours to his brothers, you get the gist.

The girl got shouted at by Summer... who in turn got lectured by a teacher because she was talking back to someone she shouldn't (apparently, the girl was (unsurprisingly) a Dragon, though she was higher in the ranks than us, therefore we **_had_** to listen to her).

The (bratty) girl left with a (stupid) smirk on her (idiotic, little) face, leaving me with a depressed and mad Summer, and a crying Nero whose self-esteem just got crushed.

I think the girl's name was Rebekah, I don't remember. I can't be stuffed to remember things that are not important. All I know is that I want to get to the top -or at the very least on a higher rank than that brat- so she has to respect _me_ while I can treat her like the dirt beneath me.

Next, we met Leah. She said she was feeling fine or something (not that I cared though), and was being polite and tried to cheer Nero up (note, the keyword is _tried_ (he cried more, saying he was worthless and such. Leah felt terrible after)). Summer and Leah both seemed to have bonded well. During the whole conversation, I remained quiet. After a while, Leah started to stare at me. "Hey, can you talk?" she asked me. I looked at her look and raised one of my eyebrows, wondering if she's deaf or stupid. I had flashbacks of all the times I've talked in school. I decided to annoy her by not talking, you know what a normal person would do, I think. "So... no?" she tried. I did not respond, which confused her more. What I was doing seemed to have cheered Nero up as he was trying to stifle his giggles. Summer was straight up laughing her heart out. Leah was frowning her brows; clearly puzzled. I patted her back and Nero continued to guide us. So that was a plus, I guess... .

While we toured the school, we saw more people mocking us and talking about us. Are these Dragons as well? Nero tried his best to ignore everyone; really hard to when they barely tried to hide what they're saying.

We finish our tour and are standing in front of the Dragon's rank building. Bianco is there waiting to meet us it seems. "Hello, everyone. How was the tour?" he asks.

"Not g-" Summer starts but is interrupted by Nero.

"Great! Everyone was nice and stuff," he quickly blurts out. Obviously, he's trying to hide what actually happened.

Bianco narrows his eyes, clearly not believing in the lie but pretends to be convinced, and says, "that's great. May I take Winter from you both for a second?" Nero nods eagerly and pushes me towards his brother.

"Good luck," Nero whispers before swiftly entering the Dragon's rank building, whilst sacrificing me to the Devil to get away from him as fast as he can... .

"So, what do you want?" I question rudely. Bianco chuckles.

"You know you're supposed to treat the people of higher rank with respect, right?" Bianco shoots back. "Anyways, usually rank leaders have an assistant. And since I'm the leader of the Dragons, I get to choose from whichever rank I want -even my own- and I can have multiple too," he explains.

"Okay, and?" I say, bored as ever. "What does that have to do with me?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to be one of my assistants," he explains further.

"No thanks," I reply and is about to walk away until he grabs my arm to stop me in my tracks.

"May I ask why? Usually, it's an honour to be chosen, especially by me." he is looking at me with furrowed brows, confusion floating around in his eyes.

"Because I'm not interested?" I answer and try to walk into the building. But clearly, Bianco had different plans as he decides to hold me against my will, I try to struggle out of his grip but to no avail, the Devil has got me.

"... I'm not going to let you go until I get what I want. And look on the bright side, I can teach you how to fight better!" He points out.

"Isn't this illegal? Holding someone hostage and having them be forced to do things they don't want to do?" I respond, "or is it because the king of the school can't get into trouble?" I sarcastically add.

"Well... holding someone hostage _is_ illegal but I _am_ the king of the school so I won't get into _that_ much trouble. So I'll ask you again, Do you want to become my assistant?"

"I don't have a choice, do I? Even if I say 'no', you'll ask Summer about it and then she'll force me to do it, orrrr you'll hold me here until I say 'yes', right?" I guess.

"I never thought about asking Summer... but now that you've mentioned it... I guess I'll ask her if you say 'no'," He replies jokingly.

"Fine. I'll do it," I grumble, not like I had a choice anyway, whatever I do I'll still end up as an assistant. But why me? And who else is his assistant?

"That's a good girl," he says, with a closed eye smile, and pats my head (he's quite tall). "I hope to see you tomorrow at a meeting that I hold once a week on Wednesday. There's a room upstairs in the building, down the right corridor and you'll see a door labelled 'Meetings'. I hope you have fun with my brother~," he waves then takes his leave.

There's something wrong with that man.


	7. First Shift

I get to Delicioso, the restaurant that I now apparently work at. Summer and I go in and start our shift.

We meet our co-workers. There are the two cooks, Leonardo (he prefers 'Leo') and Ethan (he likes to be called 'E' (he's different to the Ethan at school)); the manager, Lisa; and the four waiters/waitresses, us and surprisingly Bailey and Daffy. Bailey says that Daffy wants him to work with him because he's scared to work alone. When Daffy opens his mouth to probably object, he is quickly hushed. The owner of the place apparently comes in once in a blue moon, to check on the restaurant and the workers.

Our job is pretty simple, bring people to their tables, give them their menus, take their orders when they're ready, bring the food out, clean the table, and manage the cashier. Simple and easy, I guess.

Bailey is not as annoying as I thought he was, surprisingly. He can actually work and act like a normal -not annoying- person. Daffy also shocked me, he can talk to people without stuttering, the customers seem to enjoy talking to him.

Bailey told me some weird things about Leonardo and Ethan, he said that they sometimes talk in strange languages and when asked about what language they're speaking in, they would say 'it's our native language' or something of the sorts. He also told me that Ethan can chirp and squawk, similar to a bird, and Leonardo can growl and Bailey thinks he heard Leonardo roar once, like a tiger. I highly doubt all of this, that is unless I see -or rather hear- it myself, though it could be Bailey's prank or him spreading rumours.

After work, Summer and I decided to go to Burger Place, it was late and we haven't eaten dinner yet, so why not? Fast food now and then won't harm anyone, I think... .

When we both go to the counter to order, we see the one and only Bianco in all his glory, in a Burger Place uniform. Blu could be seen behind him filling up cups with soda. Nero's head was barely visible in the back, making the burgers. "Hello, you two. Come for a late-night snack?" Bianco greets. He looks at what we're wearing, which is our work uniform. "Just finished your shift did you? Daffy told me about that place, apparently the cooks there are 'abnormal'," he comments. Blu turns his head to look at us then walks away, drinks in hands.

"Yeah, Bailey told me that too," Summer chimes in, "I wonder if it's true."

I sigh, "I would like a chicken burger," Summer elbows me, " _please,_ " I hiss through clenched teeth, not from the pain but for needing to say 'please' to the Devil.

"You're quite rude in and out of school," he comments. I could feel my eye twitching. "Respecting those above you is a rule at school, and yet, you seem to be unable to follow it."

"Yeah, _at school_ , not out of school, _at school_ ," I explain, all he does is grin at this comment.

"And Summer, what would you like?" he asks, during all the bickering, Summer had been looking back and forth. She's smiling, something mischievous is hidden behind her smile.

"Hm... I would like a cheeseburger, no mustard though," she responds.

"Any drinks?"

"A bottle of water and a can of coke," Summer says.

"Okay, anything else?"

"No,"

"Ok, that's $9.45," Bianco informs. Summer pays and we go and eat.

As I eat, I glance at Summer out of the corner of my eye, thinking about what she was smiling about before. I still wonder if what Bianco and Bailey said were true.

"You and Bianco are cute together," and that's how Summer got a burger to the face that night.


	8. Meeting Time

The next day, I go to where Bianco told me to go, the meeting room.

Inside, there is Blu and Bianco, but there is also another guy, I'm not sure who. He wears glasses and has neat clothes though they don't shout 'rich boy here!', the clothes had a more simple, yet somewhat cheap look to them. He stares at me the moment I open the door with his sharp eyes.

"You're late," the guy mutters. This catches the attention of both Blu and Bianco. Bianco grins when he sees me. I look at him, his clothing has changed, what was once a simple white jacket and jeans during the fights are now a white, fluffy jacket, a sweater and comfortable grey pants.

"Winter! I'm happy that you're here, though you _are_ 10 minutes late," he says, " _but_ I will make this an exception as this is your first meeting." I stare at him.

"You only said 'come to the meeting room tomorrow', never 'come to the meeting room tomorrow at 3:35 after school'," I retort, imitating his voice for what he said and should have said.

"Don't you know the rules of respecting your higher-ups?" the guy, who I'm going to start calling Glasses Guy as his name is still unknown to me, hisses. Bianco is tapping his chin as if he is thinking.

"Hmm... yeah, you're right," he says. Glasses Guy is glaring at me, tapping his foot, looking like he had better things to be doing.

"So what's up with Glasses Guy, another snobby Dragon?" I comment. That makes him scowl at me even more, somehow... .

"No, he's an Eagle," Bianco answers, "he's quite good at being an assistant."

"Ok, what's his name? Or should I forever refer to him as Glasses Guy?" I ask.

" _Ahem_! My name is Blake. I do hope that you will come on time in the future," Glasses Guy -wait, sorry-, _Blake_ says in the most condescending tone.

"I thought you had to respect the people above you? Or is that only for me?" I question, that seems to tick Blake off more.

Bianco chuckles, "he'll teach you the basics of being my assistant," he gives me a closed eye smile similar to the one from yesterday. I swear Blake had muttered 'unfortunately'.

I look at Bianco then Blake then back to Bianco, "Can Blu teach me the basics?" Bianco raises his eyebrows at this, "Cause you know... I have this feeling that this guy over here hates me," indicating Blake. Bianco looks at his brother then looks at me, fear is evident on his face. I tilt my head slightly, curious about what made the all-mighty Dragon leader cower in fear (not really, but it's fun to make things dramatic... from what Summer says) and turn my head to the blue-haired man. I could see my life flash before my eyes when we made eye contact, he's even worse than Summer! Well, I guess... he's not as friendly as he seems... then again, he _did_ smash a bottle into someone's head. "...mmm, yeah, don't worry about it. I think I'll have Blake teach me the basics," I say, turning my head to Bianco.

"Good choice," he replies, he pats my head and leaves with Blu.

...

I could feel the glares burning on the side of my head.

...

_What was the meeting about anyway? We didn't do anything 'meeting' like._

_Why am I here?_

_What am I doing with my life?_

_How am I not dead yet?_

Questions start to pour into my head. I could still feel him looking -or rather- _glowering_ at me. I think I'm having an existential crisis, this guy is definitely not helping.

I examine the room, it looks like a typical meeting room, there are 11 chairs around a table; one on one end and five on each side. On the left of where the middle of the wall, in front of the lone seat is, is a whiteboard on the other side of the wall is a television.

Blake makes me sit on a chair that is the closest to the whiteboard. He writes on the whiteboard:

"Duties of an assistant:

Listen to Bianco

Obey Bianco

Don't upset Bianco

Make sure he's happy"

"So basically, I'm a servant to Bianco?" I ask.

"Sure, but he would prefer the term 'assistant'," he replies.

"Ok, whatever,"

"It seems like you barely care about being an assistant, just know that if you don't do your duties then you'll be punished."

"That's kind of worrying," I sarcastically mumble, he rolls his eyes.

"Whatever, now will you leave? Being around you sickens me,"

I raise my eyebrows at him, how rude. "Is that all you have to 'teach' me?"

"Yes, now get out,"

I do what I was told and leave. As I wander around the building, I spot Bianco. He, too, sees me and comes up to me. "How was being alone with Blake? He doesn't like it when I choose new assistants," he informs.

"You've had other assistants before? I never knew," I question.

"Yes, but as you can tell they all left, I think it was because of him, but I'm not 100% sure," he replies.

"Why do you only have Blake and Blu as your assistants, you could ask other people and hope that they don't get scared off by Blake. Like a Phoenix or Lion person would probably do well. You could've chosen a dragon too."

"The Phoenixes and Lions are too busy with other people's problems, Flys can do next to nothing, Sharks are rude and disrespectful," he responds, "and Dragons are self-centred, self-righteous, ignorant pricks. I **_hate_** self-righteous people."

"Okay... that escalated quickly," I comment, I quietly clear my throat. "So, uhh... do you want to... ah, so how's your day been?"

He chuckles, "you're not very good at this are you?"

"Shut up!" I joke, I elbow him playfully.

"Alright! Alright! I'm sorry!" he laughs. I do not realise the black eyes that are staring at us from around the corner, mischief evidently swimming around in his eyes.


	9. A Mess Of A Day

After talking to Bianco after the 'meeting', Bianco decides to take it upon himself to train me. He drags me to the arena. It has become a training area, with weights and treadmills, target practice, dummies that stay still and dummies that attack. Lots of people are here, some are using the machines, while others talk, cheer or spar with one another.

He stops in front of a dummy. "Attack it," he commands. An old memory flashes in my head, the dummy shrinks and the man who stands where Bianco once stood... .

"Hey, are you okay?" a voice says. The scene fades back to what it once was, Bianco standing next to a training dummy, he looks worried. "Hello?" the voice, or rather Bianco, questions, worry clear in his tone.

"Y-yeah, I am. At least, I think so..." I reply, I'm confused, why would that memory resurface all of a sudden? Have **they** -.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Bianco's voice snaps me out of my thoughts. I gently shook my head.

"I need some time alone. Sorry," I respond and start to quickly walk away, to where? I'm not sure.

I found a quiet place away from the chatter of people. The place is outside, at a meadow with a single tree. I'm curled up underneath the said tree. A gentle breeze blows across the grass and flowers.

I guess I feel sad... I hate showing and feeling my emotions, they mean nothing to me, yet they keep coming back. Unlike the friends I've made in the past, they turn their backs on us the minute they find out our past and what **they** 've done to us. Most left in fear that they would get caught in the crossfire of us and **them**. Others... just left cause they were jerks, they use the information that they've gained to isolate us from the people of school, whilst making themselves popular, people _thanking_ them for protecting _them_ from _us_. Like we're the monsters! We come and go, jumping from one school to the next, whether it be us not able to stand the backstabbers and the school's insults or fearing that **th** -.

"Hey," a voice whispers. Caught off guard, I jump and whip my head in the direction of the voice. It's Bianco. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I am. Why won't I be?" I hiss, my voice was quivering as I said that, but why?

"Well, the fact that you're crying shows that you're not okay" Bianco frowns. I look up at him, what did he mean by I'm crying? I then realise the tears that are streaming down my face. I quickly wipe them away, dampening my sleeves.

"Yeah, so what? I'm crying, why does that matter to the king of the school?" I sneer. Why can't he see that I want to be alone? I even said it before in the arena! I've dealt with this before, _ALONE_ , what difference will it make for a person to be here, aside from showing that I'm weak to them?

"We're friends, Winter, so like what any friend would do, I want to make sure you're okay -which you're clearly not," he answers, he spoke in a gentle way, it irritates me more, it feels like he is babying me.

"Yes, we're 'friends' until you backstab me. I know how this works, I've been through it hundreds of times. Hence why there is no 'friend' in my book, at least, not the way people describe a 'friend'," I scowl, "not like _you_ would know. Everyone wants to be _your_ friend because you're the amazing 'king of the school',"

Silence fell between us. A minute later he speaks, "... Yeah, you're right. Lots of people want to be friends with the king of the school," he agrees. I frown, isn't he suppose to be here to 'cheer' me up? "But, Winter, I want you to be friends with -not the king of the school- but with Bianco," I stare at him. "So? Will you?"

"No," is my reply, short and simple. "I've known you for like what? About three days and you want to be friends with someone like me? Touching speech and all, but we're not on the friends level yet. Try acquaintance. We'll work from there if that's what'll make you happy,"

"That's good enough for me," he grins. "But do you want to talk about what's bothering you? I mean you don't have to if you don't want to, you know. Only if you want to,"

"And you said I was bad at speaking to people,"

"Well yeah, you are -no offence-. I'm just not used to cheering people up. Blu and Nero are basically the only people I hang out with. Have you met Blu yet? He shows no emotion unless he has to, and I mean _has_ to. Nero hides his pain from me, making me not know what's bothering him and even when his troubled!" he sighs. "Well, enough about me. Are you feeling better?"

"Mhmm,"

"That's good, do you want to go back to training?"

"No,"

"Alright, let's rest here then,"

"Lovely,"


	10. Making Progress

The school term sped past after the conversation with Bianco. I attended more of the 'meetings', though they're more interesting now.

Summer and I slowly climbed up the ranks of the Dragon, I'm about 7 places from Rebecca -or whatever that freak's name is-, turns out that although she acts all high and mighty, she's not that high on the rank, about 13 spots from the last spot.

When the school wasn't fighting with one another, it was like any other normal school. Normal subjects, normal teachers. No fighting. That's for two days, the other three days are fighting. I guess I'm doing well in the 'normal' subjects, not really sure. I quite enjoy music, I would have enjoyed art if it wasn't for the teacher being laid back. Yeah, it's lovely the teacher isn't strict. But you know what else happens when the teacher is laid back? Kids, that's what! Now I don't mean literal kids (though it isn't hard to mistake them for one), I'm talking about the class shouting, throwing things, etc. They don't get into any trouble, aside from getting shouted at. It's a pain.

Enough of school, let's talk about work. More specifically, Leonardo and Ethan. They're really friendly, so friendly it's not even funny, and they always and I mean _always_ , put others in front of themselves. They're also crazy strong, mainly Leonardo, he beat up a gang of robbers that were trying to rob the store, all by himself. Now if you don't think that's weird, this might; he tied the said robbers using a chain, a chain that he got out of nowhere! He doesn't have a chain-related pendant, he has a fire one. He pulled it out of thin air, no one at the time seemed to care about that as most of us were panicking, we were just thankful that he restrained them. I have seen Ethan pet Leonardo on the head, even though he was a lot shorter than Leonardo, they may be a couple, not that I'm saying it's weird or anything, it's just that Leonardo responded by purring! _Purring_! Like a cat! They're very suspicious.

My thoughts of the strange could-be couple were left at home once the holidays came. Summer and I joined close to the end of the term, so the holiday was fast to come. We had more hours to work, but Summer and I got a four-day vacation as the restaurant was closed so the owner can come and inspect the place a bit. Why did he want to inspect it for four days, you may ask. Well, frankly I don't know, your guesses are as good as mine. It didn't really matter, Summer and I went on a vacation to the beach with Nero, Blu and Bianco.

Speaking of Bianco, our relationship seemed to have become stronger, though I do not know when he will betray me. Summer and I invited him and his brothers to the beach, to make it seem like we were 'friends'. We had a water fight, Blu won with his wave pendant. That boy can make a whole tsunami, I'm not kidding. If Bianco hadn't frozen the tsunami in place then we all would have drowned, Blu sure does take these fights seriously. Now that I think about it... Nero did have a feared look on his face when Summer mentioned a water fight, now I know why.

The new term is starting soon. Bianco said that there was a rumour that new students were coming in... wonder what rank they'll be in.


	11. The Thing Called A Bus

School starts today, poor me. Summer discovered something called a 'bus', a while ago. So now we take it to school and to work. It's a lovely thing, aside from all the loud chatter of students.

"Did you hear? New students are going to be at school today!" one girl exclaims, she is amongst some other girls.

"Yeah! I wonder if they're going to be hot!" another said.

"Don't get your hopes up, remember when you heard that two new students were coming and you said that you were going to date one of them? Turns out, they were two rejects!" one laughs loudly, out of the corner of my twitching eye, I see that Summer's nails are digging into her palms. Are those girls blind? We're right here.

"Freaks, I would say. Have you seen what they're wearing and how they act? How can they be normal, much less human?" the first girl says, the girls giggle, their voice is like glass to nail. How can people speak in that high-pitch of a voice?

"You better be careful of what you say, I heard that Bianco had a crush on the ice girl," a quiet girl whispers, though her words are wave off by the group. I snap my head at her, _what did she just say?_ Summer starts giggling like a little girl.

I glare at her and everything around us.


	12. The Old and The New

After we reach the school, we jump off the bus and head to the front of the school where the three Grayson (that's their last name, despite having names of colours) brothers are waiting. "Hi! Are you excited for school?!" Nero shouts.

Summer with the same amount of excitement sings, "Yes~. But you know, the Ice Queen refused to get outta bed so I had to drag her."

"I can imagine that," Bianco chuckles, "do you hate going to school, that much?" he asks me.

"Pfft, no. It's not like I think school is Hell or anything. Not at all," I answer sarcastically.

Bianco rolls his eyes, "come on. Let's get to class."

"Okay!" Nero and Summer simultaneously cheer.

"Have you heard about the new students?" Bianco questions me and Blu, as Summer and Nero rush off to their lockers. "I wonder what rank they're going to be in.

"Mhmm, I wonder too," I mumble.

Inside, people are doing the usual. Staring and gossiping. It's has become the norm for them. Blu looks unbothered, not that he ever isn't. Bianco, on the other hand, is glancing around, his eyes dashing from one side to the other, like he is expecting someone to jump at him. The crowd split in the middle to let us -or mainly Bianco- through.

"They look similar to the brothers."

"How can that be?"

"Maybe they're long lost, brothers!"

Are a few comments that can be heard as we walk.

"How did you guys get here so quickly!? You were just behind us!" a familiar voice shouts, it's Summer! I rush towards her voice.

When I reach her, I'm confused. In front of me are two Neros, one Bianco, a boy, and a girl, who I guess is one of the new students (people keep saying 'students', so I'm going to assume there's more than one). The boy looked similar to Blu but has a darker, navy blue style, instead of the lighter, azure colour.

The 'Bianco' is different looking, but only if you squint your eyes at his face. His eyes are sky blue instead of white.

The two Neros are doing the thing that cartoon characters do, they're mirroring each other.

Blu and Bianco appear behind me. When they see their 'other' selves, Blu frowns his brows and pulls Nero away from the other Nero, the one that is closest to us. Bianco is confused, looking at the other.

"I think I'm seeing doubles," Summer says.

"You think?" I raise my eyebrows at her. The 'Bianco' pulls 'Nero' to him and whispers something into his ear. The 'Nero' nods and turns around and covers his face. He turns back and his eyes are red. But how?

"Uh, hi! I'm Adaleyna, these are my..." she is struggling to find words, "friends, Icy," the white hair boy nods, "Blue" who I presume is the blue hair, "and Black," the once black-eyed boy waves happily.

"Are you guys secretly related?" Summer asks looking between the boys, Bianco gives her a confused look.

"No, we've never met each other before," Icy answers.

"Oh," she replies. "So are you guys wandering?"

"Yeah!" Adaleyna says. "We're trying to find our lockers. These people are quite rude, they keep staring! It's creepy!"

"No kidding," Summer agrees, nodding confidently. "Welp, we have classes to go to, unfortunately," I double take at what she just said, she's always excited about school and everything. "So we can't give you a tour," she continues. "I mean, I guess we _could_ help you with your locker problem and then we can give you a proper tour soon!"

"Yay! Thanks!" Black says. Summer and the new students walk away, on a quest to find their lockers.

"Should we be worried about them?" I hear Blu ask Bianco.

"Maybe, we'll wait and see," he replies, he then turns to me, "not going to follow them?"

"No, I can't be stuff too, it sounds boring and they seem to be good people" I answer.

"Just because they _seem_ good, doesn't mean they _are_ ," Bianco shouts over the crowd of people as I walk away to my locker.

It left a thought inside my head. Can I trust them? I sigh. There's nothing suspicious about them... except for them looking like Bianco and his brothers, and Adaleyna was uncomfortable calling them 'brother' for some reason.


	13. Matches

The loud blaring of the crowd rings in my ears as Summer and I sit at the arena waiting for the challengers, or rather the new students, to come out and fight. For some reason, Daffy and Ethan aren't here for an undisclosed reason, so the new students are going to skip Daffy and when it's their turn to fight Ethan, it'll go straight to fighting Liam. The people around us don't seem to care about why those two aren't here. Is it common for rank leaders to ditch their fights?

Icy comes out and onto the arena. He freezes Bailey, Liam and Leah. And then he faces Bian- wait, Icy has an ice pendant... does that mean he coincidently got an ice pendant or did he change his name to match? Or did he just keep getting pendants and didn't stop until he got an ice pendant? I continue to ponder while he is defeated. It'd be funny if Blue has a water pendant and Black has a shadow pendant just like their counterparts.

Welp, turns out I'm right. Blue gets up to Leah and is defeated. Black does worst and is defeated during Liam. Adaleyna has a fire pendant, she gets up to Bianco and is then defeated.

In the end, Icy is second-last in the Dragon, Adaleyna is last in the same rank, Blue is last in the Phoenix and Black is last in the Lion.


	14. Super Suspicious

Summer and I go to work after school, and we meet the one and only Icy. "So, you work here now?" I ask, how does this place get by if they keep hiring random students? Are they understaffed basically all the time? Last I checked, this place is going fine, we have two crazy cooks, and four waiters/waitresses. What is Icy? The cleaner? What about his siblings? Where do they work?

"Uhh, sure," Icy says. He seems really... suspicious.

Summer elbows me in the stomach, "you're glaring at him again."

"What are you talking about?" I whisper to her.

"You were glaring at him the whole time yesterday, while he was fighting!" Summer loudly whispers back, "do you hate him because he looks like your future boyfriend?"

"What?!" I shout at her. "I swear! I will kill you!"

"Now, now, ladies. No need to fight," Icy interrupts. Something tells me that was the wrong thing to do, as I turn my enraged glare at him. He takes a few steps back with his hands up to his chest.

Summer pulls me towards her, slings her arm around my shoulder. "Hi, Ms Lisa! How's it going?" Summer greets our manager who rushes towards us.

"Good! Would you guys mind giving Icy a tour? He's going to be attending the bar that's going to be put in a few days from now,"

"Why?" I ask.

"I don't know, it's what the owner wants to do," she replies.

"Is he qualified?"

"Enough questions, I have to go now! Thanks, girls!"

"But... we never said yes," I whine.

"Come on, let's go show you around," Summer ignores me.

We first introduce Icy to his coworkers, specifically Daffy, as they haven't met him yet and they go to the same place. Icy keeps a smile plastered on his face but it didn't reach his eyes. He somehow knows about Leo and E, Leo hugs Icy, so I guess they're best buds or something. Next, we show Icy around the place and what he may or may not have to do, we don't know what a bartender does. We learn that Icy is close to the owner who hired him to be the bartender, something about saying the bar would be a good idea... .

Welp, enough of him, I go up to Daffy. "Hey," I say.

"Oh, um, hi," Daffy whispers, he seems very... jumpy.

"Where were you and Ethan before?"

"Um, well... things have been happening to..." he starts then ends up mumbling.

"Something happened to...?" I ask.

"N-nevermind!" he responds and rushes away. What's up with him?

End of work and the end of the day, what have I achieved? Nothing.


	15. ...

I wander in complete darkness, where am I? I don’t remember what happened. I continue to wander and ponder.

Eventually, I stumble upon a lady, she reminds me of someone, I just can’t put my finger on it. But I know that I’ve never met her before. She looks at me, I think she’s smiling… the bottom half of her face is covered by a blue cloth of some sort. When I try to get a better look at her, her figure becomes blurry. Wait, no. She’s fading away. Her voice echoes out,

“ _Shall they stay, then I shall come._

_They who are not what they seem._

_The unknown we are from._

_Beware as there is a scheme,_

_hiding amongst your school._

_Do not blame the new or the old._

_Find the one who acts cruel._

_And you will find those who think of only gold._ ”

I wake up from the dream. I stagger around the place trying to quickly find a piece of paper and write what the lady said. Though I have forgotten what she looked like, her words are burned into my head.


	16. Churlish Mr Eatheron

Do you want to know what's great? I have a new art teacher! One that gets things done! Not the laid-back, boring teacher. But the sad news is that our strategy teacher has been replaced with a grumpy, old man. I hate him with passion, luckily, it's a mutual feeling.

Unfortunately, I have him four or five times a week, depending on the week, and a total of three times today! And I only have my art teacher twice a fortnight!

Anyways, Daffy and Ethan haven't been around much. I have seen them around every now and then, but they've been surrounded by Lions and Phoenixes. I wonder what's going on. Frankly, I haven't noticed anything new... I think... .

I have tried to figure out what the mysterious lady said this morning but to no avail. Maybe I should start by finding the 'one who acts cruel', or tell someone about it. Probably not, they'll just think me crazy or that I'm thinking too much about a silly little dream.

I sigh, listening to Mr Eatheron, the strategy teacher, he keeps droning on and on about the subject of attacking when your opponent is tired and then repeating it over and over. "Winter, is this too boring for you? Or is it that your brain can simply not understand what I'm teaching you is important?" Mr Eatheron scolds. Some of my classmates laugh.

"It's hard to focus when you're drilling the same thing into my head over and over," I reply in a bored manner.

"Well, if you think that then why don't _you_ teach the class?" he snares, I refuse. He keeps targeting me with random questions, usually not about the subject. When I can't answer, the class laughs.

"How can a teacher be so mean!?" Summer fumes, annoyed about Mr Eatheron. "I just want to sta-"

"Is everything okay?" Adaleyna comes up and ask, she saw the commotion before.

"Yeah! _Everything_ is fine, very fine, very very very fine," she replies, she's holding an inhuman smile, it's obviously fake.

"Jeez, he's such a big bully and Winter's just being honest!" Adaleyna says, "I just want to punch him," she punches her hand.

"That's assault," I mutter.

"Hmm..., maybe I should ask my sister... once she knows, then he would mysteriously 'disappear'," she mutters but it's loud enough for us to her. And you know, that statement isn't weird or suspicious at all!

I sigh for what feels like the hundredth time, "it's fine, I can deal with it,". The two then talks about bullying and ways to stop it. They're very enthusiastic about it.

The day continues but since I have Mr Eatheron for two more classes, he's more bitter than usual. Wonder what it takes to get a teacher fired.


	17. Cruelty As An Act

I wander around in my room, before school. There was no lady to invade my dreams last night. I ponder about what she has said the night before. I'm struggling with the part of finding the person who pretends to be cruel. Maybe I should ask around.

"Summer, do you know anyone who acts cold-blooded?" I ask.

"Uh... you?" she answers, "Well, it's more like you being cold-hearted, there's not really any acting in it though..." I frown at her, let's try someone else.

I go around during school asking people I know. First, Adaleyna and her friends. "Hey," I say. The group answers with a few hellos. "Can you think of people who pretend to be harsh?"

The boys answer with nos and Adaleyna responds with "I guess there's my sister, she's a bit crazy and stuff," Blue and Black look a bit puzzled, while Icy doesn't look very pleased with the mention of her.

"Ok, do you know where she is?"

"I think she's somewhere in Hell."

"Right...," I walk away.

Next is Bianco and Blu, they're talking in front of their lockers. "Hello, you two," I greet. Bianco replies with a smile and Blu with a stare. "Do you guys know anyone who behaves cruelly?"

"Well we do know someone who _is_ cruel, not really 'acts' cruel," Bianco answers with a really bitter look. "Why?"

"No special reason, don't worry too much about it,"

I find Nero wandering around, "Hi, Nero. Quick question, can you name anyone who fakes being heartless?"

"I guess everyone who's bullied me, except Rebekah, she's evil and mean," he then goes on to list some people, the name that catches my attention is Bailey. Time to go question him.

I say thanks, then go around trying to look for him, but unfortunately, the bell rings, indicating to head to class. As I walk to class, I discover that Daffy is surrounded by Phoenixes and Lions. What's going on? Guess I could question him and Bailey at the same time.

During work, I walk up to Daffy and Bailey, who's looking around like something is about to jump at him, I first ask Daffy, "Hey, what's going on with all the people surrounding you? Are you a celebrity now?" I joke. He gives me a slight smile but shakes his head. Bailey frowns at me.

"Don't worry too much about that," he speaks for Daffy.

"Bailey, can I whisk you away for a second?"

"...fine but be fast," he grumbles and follows me.

We walk a few metres away from Daffy, far enough for him to not hear us but close enough to watch him. "Do you know anything... that's been going on?" I inquire, I might have found ' _the one who acts cruel_ ' but I don't know what to ask him. He raises his eyebrows at me. "Uh... do you know anything about gold? Or money?"

"... yeah, objects that people kill for," he answers. "Why? Trying to find a target?"

"No, just..."

"Where are you getting these ideas from?"

"Random crazy lady and her prophecy," I blurb out before he can interrupt me.

"What is wrong with you?" he mumbles with a frown, "What was this prophecy?"

"Huh, I would have thought that you would assume that I was joking," he frowns at me, "alright so..." I explain what she said and how I think he's the _'one who acts cruel'._

"..." he doesn't say anything, though I do get a response, in the form of a glare and a sigh. It takes a bit of convincing but he eventually opens up. "Look, just so we're clear, I think you're crazy and I barely trust you, and you should probably be in some sort of mental place, especially if random ladies with crazy predictions constantly invade your dreams. But so you can help me look out for Daffy, I'll tell you.

"There's a group of Sharks going around kidnapping Eagles and Flys. They're holding them for ransom.

"I believe-no, I _know_ that someone on the outside is helping them. I just don't know who.

"Don't tell anyone that I told you this, got that?" I nod in response. "Good, now I believe you're supposed to be entertaining that white-haired clown?" I glare at him as he returns to Daffy.

Now that I have information, what do I do next?


	18. Welcome!

I walk towards the Dragon rank building, why? The Friendship Club is welcoming new members, the new members being the new students. Nero is super thrilled.

I sigh as I stand in front of the club's door. I could turn back now, and not have to go through this again. My thoughts pictures a very angry Summer and Bianco, a crying Nero, disappointed looks from the new students, and worst of all... Blu's glare. The glare that can make mountains tremble.

Maybe if I were to run away... wait, no. The door is opened by Icy. My eye twitches just a bit. "Hello, there. How long are you going to stand there for? Come in, we've been waiting for quite a while now." Icy says, with a cheery face. Might just be me, but he seems... very... suspicious, maybe on the same level as E and Leo, nay a few levels above. "So...?" Icy asks awkwardly, holding the door. I don't say anything and walk inside.

"Winter! You're late again!" Nero scolds, standing above the table whilst everyone else is sitting down. I guess to make himself feel superior and taller, Summer and I are the only ones shorter than him, even his 'clone' is taller.

"What do you mean 'again'?" I shoot back, "this is my first time being late."

"Tut-tut, my dear Winter. For you see," Nero starts, "I know what you do during meetings. I know when you arrive late. Clearly, your time organisation needs work! And your manners too! What type of person doesn't say 'thanks' when another is holding the door for them?!" he finishes dramatically.

"Alright! Jeez! I'll work better on that," I reply.

"You **will** work better on it! Or else," he grins evilly. Bianco and Blu's head both snap towards my direction.

"Yes, boss,"

"Good! Now take a seat," he says sternly. I obey his command. "Right, now on with business, we're here today to give our new members a tour. We're going to split up, the girls would go together and the boys will be together," We all agree and go off in our groups.

"So, these are the rank buildings, that one is the Eagle's, the one we just came out of is the Dragon's," Summer explains to Adaleyna. 

This goes on for a while.

"What are you kids doing out here at this time?!" a grumpy voice scolds. We're in the school building, showing Adaleyna what each room is for. We turn around and see Mr Eatheron.

"We're giving Adaleyna a tour," Summer replies, politely.

"Get out! You're not allowed in here at this time!"

"But-"

"Out! Out, I say!" he grumbles. The three of us quickly leave to another part of the building, where he would, hopefully, not find us.

"What an annoying old man!" Summer complains as we wander around the deserted corridors of the school. As we walk, we hear voices. "Who do you think that is?" Summer questions. We sneak up to the corner of the corridor where the voices are coming from.

"Look, I get it! You don't trust me. That's understandable but you have to believe me on this!" One of the voices says. It's Bailey. Is he talking about what he told me? It's about time he takes action.

"You know that we don't trust you, so why would you come and tell us?" Liam's voice responds.

"You both are the most responsible out of this school and have the power to do something. I hated you -still do-, but I don't want my friend to be hurt!" Bailey raises his voice by a bit.

"Alright, alright. We get it, you're upset, you don't need to be this loud. Don't want to attract the attention of unwanted ears, now do we?" Leah says. Does she know we're here? Highly doubt it.

"Please do something about this, get to the bottom of it before it's too late," Bailey begs. "I don't know who's behind this, but I know those Sharks' won't do this unless there's a reason,"

"Alright, we'll figure who's behind this," Liam replies.

"Don't worry, it'll be over soon!" Leah says, trying to cheer Bailey up.

"We should probably get out of here," Summer whispers. She might have whispered too loud, I don't think she knows how to whisper. It's more like a stage whisper.

"Who's there!? Come out, we can hear you!" Liam shouts. The three of us come out of hiding. "It's you three... how much did you hear?"

"More than we should have?" Summer asks more than answer.

"So... more than none?" Leah says.

"What is this about anyways? What did the Shark's do? Is there any ways we can help?" Adaleyna inquires.

"I would not tell you three but as this is a big problem, you may help. And as of now? Try to make sure that the Eagles and Flys are safe," Liam says, "we might need to meet with Bianco. You three, with prying ears, will need to come too." He shoots a glance at us.

"We all will go and make sure that Daffy and Ethan get to the meeting room safely. But Winter, go tell Bianco about this. And make sure no one knows about what's going on, this is top secret, no mass panic attacks are needed here, no siree!" Leah commands. I nod and head to the Dragon's building, where I assume Bianco is at... has he finished his tour yet?

Well, shoot.


	19. Emergency Meeting

I’m lucky enough to run into the boys while heading towards the Dragon’s building. “Hey, is everything okay?” Bianco asks, seeing as I’m in a bit of a frenzy.

“Nope, that’s why I need to talk to you privately,”

He looks worried, “are boys bothering you? I swear I’ll-” he starts as I drag him to a place that seems to be out of earshot.

“No, Leah sent me to go get you because we’re going to have a meeting with the rank leaders, which includes me, Summer and Adaleyna,”

“Oh, okay then,” the worry on his face washes away when he realises it has nothing to do with bothersome boys. But shouldn’t this be more worrying? “Come on, I have to tell those guys that I'm going then we can go to the meeting room,” I nod in agreement and wait as Bianco says what he needs to. I notice that Nero’s eyes widened when he hears that Bianco needs to go with me. A mischievous aura is spewing from him.

Bianco and I rush to the meeting room, which just so happens to be the same room that the usual meetings take place.

When we arrive, the chairs are occupied by the leaders except for the one at the end of the table, Bianco takes that seat and says, “so, what’s the matter this time?”

I’m forced by Blake to stand behind Bianco while the other assistants (except Blu) stand behind their leader. Adaleyna and Summer decide to stand on one side of the room. Leah fills him with what Bailey told her and as I suspected it is about the kidnappings.

“And when did Bailey told you?” Bianco asks.

“A few minutes ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” he questions Bailey.

“I didn’t know what to do and I thought that you wouldn't believe me,” Bailey answers, surprisingly being polite.

“Alright, but do you know which specific person did this and why are those two here?” Bianco inquires, indicating towards Summer and Adaleyna.

“They were eavesdropping on our conversation with Bailey so we decided to bring them as well,” Liam responds, he seems to be holding a grudge on that.

“Alright then,” Bianco says.

“I believe that the ones who are doing this are Jack, Belle and Ben,” Bailey comments.

“And where exactly are these people?” Bianco questions.

“I’m not sure, they could be anywhere,” Bailey answers.

“That’s not exactly helpful. How do you know that it’s them?”

“They have been acting weirder than usual and I have seen them drag a big bag that could fit a person inside,”

“Right, Axel, please go find these people,” Bianco orders. The guy behind Leah nods and rushes off. “Liam, please notify the police,” Liam does what he is told and walks to a corner of the room, taking his phone out to dial. “We should list suspects on who the mastermind behind this is,” he says.

“Maybe the new students and staff that joined this term,” Leah suggests. “The disappearances did start this term,”

“Alright, Blake please write their names onto the whiteboard,” he orders. Blake nods and writes Adaleyna, Black, Icy, Blue, Mr Jocway -the art teacher- and Mr Eatheron.

“Can you get rid of mine and the brothers’ names?” Adaleyna asks.

“Everyone is a suspect unless you can provide valid reasons. Keep in mind that your reasons could be used against you,” he replies.

“I just can’t imagine Black doing any of these things…” she mutters.

“So his other brothers would?” She shrugs her shoulders, mumbling something along the lines of 'depends on the situation, I guess...'. They then start to list other people who’ve been here for longer. What did the lady say, something about ‘ _don’t blame the new or the old_ ’ or something... . Does this mean anything? Welp, whatever. Not like anybody would care.

“I don’t feel like Mr Jocway is the culprit. He’s too nice and-” I start, but is quickly interrupted by Bianco.

“Winter, he may _seem_ nice, that doesn’t mean he _is_ nice. _Maybe_ he puts on a face during school and then outside, _maybe_ outside he’s a big jerk.” I frown at him, but I refuse to say anymore. The room falls into silence.

We wait until Axel walks through the door with three people. Liam and Leah move closer to Daffy and Ethan, who are on the other side of the table, maybe to protect them. “Are you Jack, Belle and Ben?” Bianco asks the three.

“So what if we are?” one of them snarl, “you’re not getting anything outta us,”

“I know,” Bianco smiles, “why not take a seat? I’m sure there are... ways to make you talk," the Sharks glance at each other. "Though if you don't comply, force will be utilised," Bianco says calmly like he's talking about the weather and not threatening some kidnappers. The three obey and sit. "Now would you mind telling us about yourselves?" Bianco ask, maybe to make the kidnappers feel less worried? Who knows, it's certainly working. The Sharks begin opening up. The 'interrogation' goes on for a while, Bianco would fire them questions about themselves, the questions are not too personal, and they would answer.

Liam walks up to Bianco and whispers into his ear, "the cops are here,"

"Good, please bring them into here," Bianco whispers back. Liam nods and goes off. Bianco notices my stare at him, he lifts his head back and gives me a wink before lying to the Sharks that Liam had to use the bathroom and there is nothing to worry about. I don't know why but my face seems to heat up by the action, I glare at the back of the white-haired male, what is he trying to do? Nonetheless, he continues with his questions, ignoring the feeling of dread aimed towards his head.

"He's not here so you won't be able to find him anyways," Jack, I think, admits.

"Oh? Where would this 'he' be?" Bianco inquires. He seems pleased to be getting some sort of information out of these three.

"I ain't saying nothing!" Jack says.

"So you will?"

"Nah, just like what I just told you!" Bianco rolls his eyes at Jack's statement. He stops pushing and leans back in his chair. He shuts his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, he seems relaxed.

Then the police come bursting in through the door, well the feeling of relaxation died quite quickly. I sigh, though it's mute compared to the infuriated shouts of the Sharks. The police leave as quickly as they came, taking the Sharks with them. Bianco leans on one of his arms on the table, he’s thinking about something.

A few minutes later, Bianco’s eyes lock onto mine. “Security cameras,” he says, “we can look at the security cameras and see where those Sharks go.”

“But isn’t the view of the security camera limited?” Adaleyna ask, right, she exists, “also, how are we going to use the cameras? Wouldn’t they be in like a staff-only room?”

“Well, when you’re at the top, anything goes,” Bianco answers, of course, he can access the cameras and do whatever he wants.

Bianco, Summer, Adaleyna, Blake and I all go to the room of cameras. While walking, we come across… Rhubarb? Rebaka? Wait... I think it is Rebekah… welp, who cares? “Bianco! Where have you been? I’ve missed you~!” she expresses, she goes in for a hug but is pushed away by Bianco, who is disgusted.

“Darn! Rejected!” Adaleyna laughs, Rebekah’s cheek flares red, she turns on her heels and stomps away, huffing in anger.

“You know, we should keep you close to us if you can make Rebekah flee this fast,” Summer jokes.

“Is she as bad as I think she is?” she asks in laughter.

“She’s one of those people who think ‘I look amazing, I am amazing and everyone knows that therefore I get _whatever_ I want!’,”

“Jeez…”

We manage to get to a room label ‘SECURITY’. Bianco looks around for a teacher or a staff of some sort to unlock the locked door. “I vote to kick the door down,” Adaleyna says, she looks around and spots Icy and his brothers with Bianco’s brothers. “Icy, help us break into this room!” Adaleyna orders. Icy, without questioning anything, breaks away from his group and walk towards the door and does some sort of ice magic to form a key for the door, he unlocks the door and gives the key to Adaleyna and walks back to his brothers. “Not really what I wanted, but good enough!”

“What are you doing, hm?” Nero asks, he puts his hand up to his chin and leans forward to show how suspicious he is.

“Nothing?” Bianco responds. Adaleyna shrugs to him and walks in, the rest of us aside from him goes in, he shoots me a begging look. I ain’t dealing with this devil today, no siree. I walk in and shut the door.

“You’re not going to save him?” Summer questions.

“Nope,” I reply and walk towards the wall filled with screens monitoring the school. “Does anyone know how to reverse time?” A series of ‘no’s answers my question. I sigh as they walk around and fiddle with any button they find. I open the door, drag Bianco in and slam the door. He gets straight into business and press buttons for the different areas.

“Here,” he shows us. In the view of the camera is three people dragging a garbage bag that is filled with something towards a van, spray-painted with ‘ _The Malicious Skulls_ ’, is it some sort of band name? I've never heard of them but Bianco seems like he had. “Don’t worry too much about this… I’ll…” he sighs, “I’ll take care of this,” he doesn’t seem happy. He leads us towards the door. “Go home for the day and tell the others too,” with that he leaves.

We do what we are told and inform the others.


	20. Lovely Outing, This Is

After the meeting, I walk around since I don't have work. It's nice to be free. While walking, I spot Bianco, I sneak up behind him and say, "Hey," He jumps and turns. When he realises it's me, he slaps on a jolly fake smile.

"Winter... it's nice to see you," he says, "don't you have things to be doing?"

"Nope," I reply. "Where are you going?"

"..." he hesitates, "nowhere special..."

"Okay, then. I guess it's fine for me to follow you,"

"I think you can spend your time with something better,"

"Nope, Summer's coming too," I say, texting her.

"Winter..."

"Let's have a nice outing, especially after what just happened."

"But-"

"Heyyyy!" Summer shouts, running up to us. "Am I third-wheeling?"

"No," I frown, this lady is crazy.

Soon, we reach a really prestigious looking school. A sign that is painted with gold says ' _Battle Institute Of The Honoured and Prestigious_ ', really flows off the tongue, though I can't say much as I go to a school called The Battle Academy For The Gifted.

With a sigh, Bianco steps in. Why are we here? He seems to know where he's going, a few turns here and there and we reach a music room. Inside a band is playing, he steps in and shouts causing them to stop, "Hey, Fred. Mind if I were to talk to you for a bit?"

The band laughs, "look it's Verde's little baby brother and his band of weaklings. You know you can't go around demanding things especially in this school, Little White." This seems to have ticked Bianco off.

"Look, I just need to talk to Tom," he replies through gritted teeth.

"Didn't I just say that you can't demand things? Just because you're top dog in _your_ school doesn't mean you are in _ours_ , regardless of what position your brother has." Bianco has enough of this and leads us out of the school.

"Please go home, there's nothing we can do... ." he sighs. "Seems like I have to talk to him anyway," he mutters to himself.

He begins to walk away, but Summer holds onto him and says "let's go get ice-cream!" Before he can protest he's dragged off. "Come on, Winter!" I quietly follow, enjoying the struggles of Bianco.

During the evening, Summer gets a message from Bianco, it reads ' _I tried, but it didn't work. Do you want to try and scour for some places?_ '.

Since when did she have his number?

Why does that even matter? It doesn't... so why do I care?

She answers with a sure and we get into a call with him, listing random places that could hold random people as hostages. It went from homes of those involved to abandon warehouses that are somewhat nearby.

Alright, seems like tomorrow we're going to be doing some detective work.


	21. Ritual of Hell

Bianco, Summer and I walk around town, ticking off the places we have checked for suspicious activities relating to the kidnappings. It doesn’t seem to be going well, we have visited this… Tom’s house, a few of his friends’ places, the other school again and a few other places.

I look up at the sky in boredom and spot a weird cloud formation. The sky is spotless aside from this one spot where grey clouds are gathering and spinning. I stop and stare in wonder, Bianco and Summer notice and look over at the clouds too.

“Is that normal?” Summer asks.

“No, someone could be using a cloud pendant of some sort but why they’re using is the better question.” Bianco responds, “Come on, let’s go check it out.”

The three of us run towards the area. Once we’re close, we discover that the clouds would send lightning bolts around us, seemingly to keep us away. But we venture forwards anyways and we meet Icy and Black. Oh, joy. “What are you doing here? Are you the cause of this?” Bianco questions his counterpart.

“No, we’re here to figure out what’s going on, something tells me you are too,” he answers. The two join us on our conquest.

Soon we come upon an abandoned warehouse, where the eye of the storm is located above. In front of the warehouse is a person, cloaked and clouded in mystery… and a few clouds. It appears that this person is the cause of all the clouds.

They notice us when we notice them. With a wave of their hand, lightning bolts are summoned, this time not to scare, but with a more malicious objective, to injure and kill. Icy and Bianco think fast and create a shelter of ice, we could see through it but it’s thick enough to protect us from the lightning. The lightning comes from the direction of the person in the cloak and from above.

“What do we do?” Summer screams over the thunder.

“Shoot at them!” Icy shouts back as he and Bianco blast ice to seal cracks and holes caused by the lightning.

“Right!” With that Summer, Black and I blast them… or rather Summer and I throw fireballs and ice blasts at the person and Black creates a gun using his shadow pendant and starts shooting.

The person hits the projectiles with bolts of lightning, the ice balls shatter, the fireballs evaporate into nothing, but the bullets of Black's gun only keep flying until it hits the arm of the cloaked enemy.

The clouds and lightning vanish, though the clouds take a bit longer.

Icy rushes from the makeshift shelter and to the person, he quickly chains them with ice and removes the cloak from their face.

A man's glare is revealed.

He struggles against the chains, muttering incoherently to himself.

"Who are you and what are you trying to hide?" Bianco inquires, he glares at the man with about the same hatred that's being sent. But the man is too preoccupied to answer. Bianco sighs, "he's clearly protecting this building. Knock him out so we can go in without needing to worry about him escaping." Icy complies and hits him hard.

The man lies awkwardly sprawled on the ground whilst still being bound. We walk around him and towards the door.

The two white-haired males place their ears against the door. Trying to listen for any forms of life beyond the door. Summer, Black and I follow suit. I hear mumbling in a strange language, it's nothing like the ones I've heard before.

Icy and Bianco exchange looks, seemingly knowing what the other is thinking. They pull us away from the door and quietly open it. When a small gap is visible, Icy pops his head in. He pulls out with a look of worry and a tad bit of disgust is mixed in.

We slip in quietly into a dark spacious room. I can see why Icy reacted the way he did.

In the middle of the room are the people in cloaks, mumbling whatever they're mumbling. They're surrounding a weird symbol on the floor, one that is similar to a pentagram, in the middle of the symbol is a corpse of a teenager about a year older than us. His body is spread so each limb and his head aligns with the points of the star. Marks are on his body like someone scribbled words on him using his blood.

I could not think much more about the situation since the cloaked people notice the light coming in from the ajar door.

One person shouts, "Ignore them, keep going, we're nearly done!" Done? Done with what? The murmur becomes louder into a sort of chant. The symbol lights up with the markings on the corpse. The corpse slowly lifts off the ground like a puppeteer pulling up a puppet. The markings move to the centre of his chest.

The corpse then blows up turning into a giant explosion.

In the place of the corpse is a strange 'rip' that seems to be a portal of sorts. The explosion sent the cloaked people flying a few feet, most seem to be unconscious. The ones who aren't, try to crawl away from the 'rip'.

Humanoid hands come out of the 'rip', pushing the sides so it becomes larger. Soon a head follows, then a body.

What's freaky is that the person who came out has horns, wings and a tail. Basically, he looks like a demon.

The demon guy turns his head towards us, with piercing red eyes he smiles, not a friendly one, but one that hides a sinister motivation.

Fiery rope flies out from his hands and he drags us into the 'rip'.

We struggle but to no avail, the 'rip' could take us anywhere or nowhere.

But who knows, aside from the guy who came out of it


	22. The Red Arena

Red, that's the primary colour of this place.

Looking out the small gap to the outside world, it's still red.

The sky is an endless void of redness, there aren’t any clouds.

Guess we really are in Hell.

The demon guy dragged us in and then chucked us into a dungeon.

Luckily, Icy has a phone that he can use. We may or may not be in another world or dimension, so the usage of that phone makes no sense, but nevertheless he manages to call somebody.

Somebody called 'Damon' answers. Alright, so does that mean we aren't in Hell? Icy does not explain.

Summer paces around in the cell, she stops and asks, "did anyone know who the corpse was? Or the guy?"

Bianco mutters from his corner, "the corpse was Tom." With a quiet 'oh', Summer continues to pace around.

The window allows sounds of cheering to be able to spill into the room. We glance at each other confusion evidently written on our faces. Icy looks around at everything but us with wide eyes, he opens his mouth then bites his tongue.

He looks worried, his brother is also worried but it seems for a different reason. They walk to the corner opposite Bianco and the one that's nearest to the door. They hug each other and rock around in an attempt to calm down. Summer looks at me and spreads her arms out. With a sigh, I go to hug her. It's silent, but... it's nice.

That is until a scream rips through the air. More cheering follows after.

Bianco jumps up and says, "we have to get out of here,"

"And getting out of here, you will," a voice with an unrecognisable accent responds, it's the guy from before. He approaches our cage and looks from one person to the next. He smirks and unlocks the door.

Once again, he ropes us then leads us out. No amount of struggling could break the rope.

We're led to a room, there's nothing in it. Again it's red, like everything else. The man leaves, taking the rope with him.

A wall from the ceiling comes crashing down, in front of the door, and the wall directly opposing slowly lifts up and the sound of cheering floods the room once more.

We walk out to an arena that’s similar to the one at school, except the ground is sandy, seats full of people with horns, tails and wings, there are red stains here and there and everything is again, mostly red.

A loud voice shouts something in another language, one that feels rough and sinister. It starts again, but this time in English, "YOU, HUMANS, WILL BE THE TOYS FOR OUR BELOVED CHAMPION!” The crowd applauds in response.

The voice laughs, “LET US ENJOY THE SPILL OF BLOOD. NO ONE CAN TAKE THIS FROM US, NO SATAN OR A STUPID, CURSED ANGEL!” This time the crowd roars, clearly not liking the people mentioned.

During the noise of the masses, a man approaches the middle of the arena, with no horns or other characteristics that make him look abnormal. His eyes are cold and dead. Scars and wounds sprinkled amongst his body. He stares at us, holding a sword, old and rusty and covered in stains of red. His eyes reflect no light. A small amount of sympathy is hidden behind his eyes, though it’s hard to find.

"Let me kill you so you don't need to be burdened with pain and guilt." He croaks out, hardly audible.

"AND GOOOO!!!"

The man starts sprinting at full speed towards us, wildly swinging around his sword. “Run!” Bianco shouts and we split, running this way and that. He’s fast for a starved man. He continuously mumbles something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘It’s for the best’.

The target of the man is not consistent, jumping from one person to another.

“Attack him when he’s chasing another person!” Bianco commands. Alrighty then, though not a good idea to shout it out loud for the enemy to hear, but okay, sure. We do as we are told, hitting the man every now and then, but he obviously heard what Bianco shouted and is very cautious while chasing. Unfortunately for us, the man is inhumanly persistent and still flings his weapon around.

Screams of fear and pain break out from above. Panic flowing into every sinned soul, as everyone rushes to get out. An ice dome forms from the bottom to the top, evidently trapping us and the people here. The voice from before shouts something, his voice shaking with urgency. The man stops for a slight second then continues going after Summer.

“What’s going on?!” Bianco yells as he huffs and tries to take in as much air as possible.

“Help is here,” Icy answers back, smiling and trying to freeze the man. He whispers thoughtfully “The infamous Fox of Satan… .” Stopping to tap his chin, smiling to himself, what a weird creep. He quickly snaps out of it and focuses on the man while Black runs to him.

“You can’t leave! You’ll die!” The man screams, stopping and turning, looking at each of us, raising his sword. His hands are shaking uncontrollably.

“ **Everyone will die,** ”


	23. The Fox

‘Everyone will die’? Who does this person think they are?

We look around but are unable to find the owner of the voice. Or rather, everyone except Icy. He’s looking up with a glare. And lo and behold, there’s another cloaked person... floating in the air… with a fox-like mask on… and with a blue giant scythe on the back. Are they another insane cultist? Wait, given our situation and the chance that we _may_ be in Hell… could this be _the_ Grim Reaper? “Wrong person, Little Ice Queen~” The person giggles. I didn’t say that out loud, did I? Summer gives me a confused look.

They go ‘hmm’ then lands and slices the man in half. A quick clean cut, for some reason no blood comes spilling out. That scythe is something. But what does come out is a dark grey glowy thing, it floats up and is quickly trapped in a jar by the strange person. Their hands vanish into their cloak.

“You done yet?” Icy nags, tapping his foot. He lets out an angry sigh, “we don’t really have all day, so hurry up, _Monster_ ,” Icy’s hatred is clear, especially when he spat out ‘Monster’.

“Of course, so _sorry_ , _sir_ ,” the person or ‘Monster’ sasses back with a mock bow. Icy’s eyes twitch, this goes unnoticed to ‘Monster’, “you should smile more, my _dearest_ , _beloved_ Icy.” He lets out a ‘tch’ and turns his head. Is that a blush? Black looks between ‘Monster’ and his brother, confusion and curiosity mixing on his face.

‘Monster’, seemingly satisfied, turns around. A hand comes out from the cloak, using their fingers with abnormally sharp nails, they sink their hands into the air and jerk their hand to the side, creating a ‘rip’ like before. The hand goes back under the cloak.

Stepping to the side, they allow us through. “Finally,” Icy mutters accompanied by an eye roll. He hurries to the ‘rip’ and steps in. Black goes next then Summer. She gives a quick ‘thanks’ then leaves. Bianco looks at me expectantly and I walk towards it.

RIght as I step in, I hear, “Looks like I’m going there, after all…” I try to turn around but I’m already on the other side of the ‘rip’, in front of the school. Bianco comes out, puzzled.

When all of us have gone out, a blue needle appears out of the air and ‘sews’ the ‘rip’ back together. It pulls and the ‘rip’ closes, with its job done, it disappears, as fast as it came.

“You meddling kids!” We turn and see Mr Eatheron trekking towards his, waving his fist, “get outta here!” We run the other way, out of the school.

“Now where could those Flys and Eagles be?” Bianco mutters, right this is what we were doing.

“Wherever they are, I’m sure you’ll be able to find them. We’re going to have a rest, been a busy day,” Icy says. He and Black leave the group.

Lots of help they were.

We make an anonymous call to the police and tell them that Tom is the one behind the kidnapping. We don’t tell them about the cult or Hell, only that Tom is the one and he ‘ran away’.

The police investigates this and find the Flys and Eagles scattered between the Shark kidnappers’ and Tom’s house, in basements or other places we weren’t able to check.

Summer, Bianco and I go to get celebratory ice-cream. We sit at a table, eating our ice-cream. Bianco decides to speak, “we’re having a camp at school soon,”

A camp you say? Sounds… fun.


	24. Side Story I - Sick Cookies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick, skippable, short chapter of a cat.

The days have been uneventful after the kidnapping.

Until today.

"No, my poor baby is sick!" Summer sobs. She hugs our cat, Cookies, rubbing her face into her soft fur. The cat whines and sneezes in protest. "What should we do? We're too poor to take her to the vet..." I go up to her and remove the poor cat from her. "We can't leave her at home... Let's bring her to school with us!" I stare at her, _right because bringing a sick cat to school is definitely the_ _most_ responsible _thing one can do._ "Have any better ideas?"

I sigh as we walk into the school grounds. Cookies is in Summer's bag, she isn't making any noises, Summer made sure to leave a gap in the zip so said cat could breathe. We're going to get into so much trouble, and guess who we have, not once, not twice, but three times today? Mr Eatheron. Not to mention we have to leave Cookies by herself for three periods of training.

Cookies is quiet and still. Quite helpful when sneaking one's pet into somewhere, not helpful when trying to figure out whether she's dead or not.

The first two periods go well, Cookies is still inside the bag but no one has noticed so far. We walk to the next period. I'm dreading it very much. Mr Eatheron already hates me, I'm digging my own grave. At least Summer would be buried with me.

"What's wrong?" Adaleyna asks me, possibly noticing my face. "Is it Mr Eatheron? Do I have to beat him up?"

"It's... fine, don't worry about it," I reply, taking my seat.

This time Cookies is inside of Summer's pencil case. It's quite big, which is good, I guess.

Soon, Mr Eatheron enters the room. The class instantly quiets down. He mumbles quietly. The bell rings and class starts.

While he grumbles random things, I hear a bit of shuffling in Summer's pencil case and then sneezes and coughs start to become audible. She obviously has heard it too, as we look at each other with a worried look. Our glance floats down to the case. More shuffling and a few more coughs. Mr Eatheron is coming closer. He goes quiet while walking towards us.

"What is in there, Miss Shizun?" he mutters.

"Nothing!" she squeaks, clearly not noticing him coming. "J-just a bit sick! That's all!" He narrows his eyes and snatches it from the desk. "No!" she shouts as she reaches for it, but he opens it out of her reach and empties the contents out. Pencils, rulers, erasers all spill out onto the floor, with Cookies in the mix. She lets out a little cry when she hits the ground.

"What is the meaning of this?!" he scolds, picking her up by the tail. She wiggles slightly, making quiet meows.

"Don't touch her!" she quickly snatches Cookies away and cradles her in her arms.

A few whispers and snickers float around the class. Summer's face is beaming red while the teacher is going off at her. "How could you bring such thing into here, Miss Shizun! You are worse than your sister!". More insults spew from his aged mouth, as his wrinkled forehead somehow creases more. Summer snatches her pencil case from him, picks up her stuff and marches out. I gather mine and her things up and follow suit.

She's a few metres from the door of the classroom. Sitting in front of the lockers that occupy the front of the wall. She lets out a few sobs into her legs, where Cookies lie. Said cat is pawing and meowing at Summer's face, trying to cheer her up. Though in between meows she coughs and occasionally sneezes.

I sit next to her, dumping our stuff on the other side of me. "We really should take up Adaleyna's offer," I joke. She smiles a bit but it quickly goes away. She leans her head onto my shoulder as I do the same to her head. She pats and rubs our cat's head.

It seems someone or some people are causing an uproar in the classroom. It's quite pleasant to hear, students giving Mr Eatheron a hard time is something I'll enjoy any time of the week.

The door slams open and Adaleyna, Blue, Black and the Greysons walk out. Adaleyna, Nero and Black are fuming. Bianco is... sad? Disappointed? Blue and Blu are, like always, neutral. No sign of Icy, how nice.

The group walks up to us. Nero and Black make sure we're doing alright, with Black making sure Cookies isn't injured. Something about his mum liking wildlife or something and teaching him. The two blue heads are standing at a distance. Bianco decides to plop down next to me... and leans his head against my shoulder like Summer. I gently punch him and he moves away, by just a millimetre. Adaleyna also made sure we're alright, before going on a long tangent on how rude Mr Eatheron is and how she's definitely going to get her sister to kill him. You know, the usual stuff she talks about whenever it's said teacher as the topic.

"We should take that cat to the vet." Bianco comments.

I look at him, "we're poor."

"But we're not." He smiles. I want to punch him again, though this time not as friendly or soft. He quickly stammers, "A-anyways, we're going to the vet after school for Nero's fish." He looks away, Black and Nero start talking about fish. Nero's going on about how they're nice pets and Black is saying how delicious they are. Let's hope Black doesn't get anywhere close to Nero's fish.

Summer chooses to leave school early and wait at home until school ends to follow Nero and his brothers to the vet. The rest of us sit outside the room and talk. Since Mr Eatheron is a huge jerk and everything. For the two other classes we have with him, we wait around outside while Mr Eatheron teaches inside. We also went around snooping inside the Dragon building. In the third period with him, Icy finally decides to turn up in all his glory. He happily joins in with the exploration of the building.

We found an art room, a music room and even a library there. Nero, buddy, where's my tour of this building?! Screw the school building, this is a giant maze with everything that a regular school provides! I guess wandering around is the closest thing I'll have to a tour.

So after school, we meet up at the vet. Real nice and everything. Nero has brought his pet fish, Sam, John, Bob and Bobbie. Bianco decides to bring his dog, Muffet, and Blu (is probably forced to) brings his cat, Clawdeen. Jeez, they have so many. Bianco reassures me that all the money used for these pets combined does not measure to the cost of the family's elephant. I stare at him, hoping that he's kidding.

He is not.

Summer turns up with Cookies in her arms, Muffet is barking, supposedly happy that there's a kitten to chow down on. Wait, do dogs eat cats? ...I don't think so. Clawdeen looks like her owner; neither want to be here. And Nero's fish... they look... like... fish.

"So, what's up with your fish? Fishes? Your pets?" I ask.

He grins and replies, "just a check up."

We enter and check in. Soon Cookies is called in and Summer goes with the cat. Then Nero goes in for the check up. Can fish get sick?

We leave when both pets are out. Summer has the medicine in hand for the cat.

We end the day with eating dinner at a nice restaurant nearby and taking an evening walk around the park before separating to head home.

The cat's not dying anymore, how fun.


	25. More Training

During the free period, the Friendship Club goes to the Arena to train. Bianco’s a bit worried after last time, but I assured him that my sanity is intact and nothing would happen.

Summer and Adaleyna are fighting with their pendants. The same goes for Blue and Blu. Icy’s training by himself. Black and Nero are talking to each other. Bianco is standing next to me, watching everyone with the occasional glance to the side at me.

“Did you know that if you destroy a person’s shadow, they die?” Black beams.

“Really?” his doppelganger replies with the same amount of joy and happiness.

“That’s interesting, isn’t it?” Bianco says to me, “wonder where he got that from. Come let’s train.” He holds my arm and gently drags me to an empty space. “Want Icy to join?” I shake my head.

We stand beside each other, Bianco’s going to be teaching me new moves. But before he starts he clarifies, “Are you sure you won’t break down? It’s fine if you want to let it out, but do you want to do it in private or…?”

“I’m fine,” I hiss for the hundredth time. He gives me one more worried look before starting to teach.

“Make the ice go faster,” Bianco instructs. I’m trying to spread ice along the ground while shooting ice balls at an ice dummy. Hearing Bianco point things out from afar does not help at all. I focus more on the ice. “Keep shooting,” I sigh at his words, it’s hard to do two things at once. “You’ve slowed down!” Today’s going to be _very, very_ charming.

A few minutes go by until Icy joins us. He comments a bit on my stance. “Distractions are everywhere, aren’t they?” he chuckles.

“Yeah,” I reply then mutter lowly. “There would be less if you shut up though,”

“That’s not very nice,” Icy comments. Bianco glances at Icy through the corner of his eyes, curious about what he’s talking about. Clearly one of them is listening more than the other.

I continue with the mockery of a training, now Black and Nero have come by to chat. “Keep going! You’re doing well!” they both encourage. Deep breaths, Winter, deep breaths. They’re just being nice.

After a few more cheers, Adaleyna and Summer, who have finished with their spar, come over. Summer says to both of the black-haired boys, “I know you’re being kind and stuff but don’t you think it’s a bit mean to lie to her about how well she’s doing?” Breathe in and out, she’s your sister, she’s being nice. Deep breaths, Winter, don’t do anything stupid.

A few remarks and some louder breaths later, Icy has the audacity to ask, “Is she okay? Her breathing has gone rigid,”

“It seems like she is trying, huh, really hard to tell,” Bianco replies.

“Come on! Be nice!” Nero grumbles.

Don’t listen to them, Winter, focus. “Arg!” I shout after a wave of water hits me. I stop and glare at the two blue-haired boys. Blue shrugs and continues with the spar. Blu sends me his normal glare. Adaleyna, Summer, Bianco and Icy are laughing their butts off. Black is giggling though it’s barely audible and his counterpart is glaring at his eldest brother. He stamps his foot onto his and Bianco quickly stops.

He clears his throat, “Winter, focus on -ow-,” Nero crushes his foot again, “Right, let’s do something different... how about Dodgeball?” 

We all agree and split in half, but since there’s an odd amount of people, Bianco decides to take it upon himself to be the referee.

Black, Blu and Summer are in one team and the rest are in mine. Great, Icy’s here. He gives me a quick grin and stands next to me. We’re on the opposite side of our opponents in a makeshift court, that is created by lines of ice. We face them, the dodgeballs lying in the middle.

“Go!” Bianco shouts. And we run towards the balls. They start flying everywhere. Summer lets out a quick “oof!” when she’s hit in the stomach by Blue. She walks off the court, holding her stomach, towards where is Bianco.

I dodge a few and pick one up. I look around and get hit by a ball in the face. “Sorry!” Black shouts, he throws really hard. I walk off and stand on the other side of Bianco.

“You know, you really should have laid down the rules. Being hit in the face is not fun, trust me,” I comment.

He chuckles in response, “Maybe I should have. Though, I thought it would be quite obvious.” He makes a block of ice and hands it to me. I slap it onto my face. My face now hurts more and it's colder. Bianco gives Summer a block of ice too, though it melts a bit when it touches her injury. She opts to leave it on the ground instead.

Blu, Adaleyna and Nero soon join us and it’s now brother against brothers, Black against Icy and Blue. The balls go back and forth.

Then someone rushes in. “Have any of you seen a tornado pendant?” He asks in a frenzy. The Dodgeball game is halted for a bit, or at least that’s what we thought, until Icy chucks a ball at his brother, who whines for a bit.

While that’s going on, the rest of us walk up to the person. “No, we haven’t. Do you need help?” Summer replies. He nods and rushes out. We follow, Icy and his brother came after quickly shoving the balls away. The ice would melt in due time.

“If he doesn’t find his pendant then he’ll probably be kicked out,” Bianco informs us. Nero, Summer and Black look worried.

Where could this pendant possibly be?


	26. The Search For What's Missing

We wander around the school, looking for the missing pendant. Apparently, it belongs to a Fly, not the guy who rushed in. The guy is a Lion and friends with the Fly. Mr Eatheron scolds us out of some classrooms, it annoys us, as we cannot search for long before he comes bumbling in.

We soon gather in a hallway to discuss what to do. “He won’t get kicked out if we find his pendant or get him a new one by the end of the day,” Bianco says.

“Can’t you do anything about this?” I ask him, “like dragging the time out?”

He replies with “I could, but he lost his pendant, he should be more careful,”

“Correction, his pendant ‘disappeared’,” Summer provokes. She glares from beside him.

“Come on, let’s maybe question the person who was stolen from, yeah?” Nero tries to separate the two by wiggling in to stand between the two. Adaleyna sighs and drags Blue away.

I, too, start to drag Summer away while her eyes are still burning into Bianco’s.

We walk towards the Fly building while asking people along the way, not really helpful, as none of them knows of such things. As we walk around, I overheard a group talking about a strange man roaming around the school. Should probably tell the teachers or call the police, but maybe it’s false or something. I glance at Bianco who’s frowning, wonder if he heard?

We reach the building and enter. Nervous faces turn to us as we go in, they look and then quickly snap away. Some even vanish to other rooms. The current room we’re in is kind of small and a few cracks are visible here and there in the ceiling and walls. But it’s obvious that this place is taken care of really well, as no dirt or dust could be seen from a quick scan.

A Fly is being comforted in the corner by the guy who rushed in. Seems like he’s taking a break. “Hey,” Adaleyna greets them. “You doing alright?”

He shakes his head and quietly sobs. “Hey, it’s going to be alright, we’ll find your pendant for you.” Summer whispers to him while rubbing his shoulder. “Even if _some_ _of us_ aren’t the _most_ _helpful_ ,” she then adds, turning to sneer at Bianco. He sighs.

“Where have you been?” He asks gently, “this could help us figure out the whereabouts of your pendant.”

The Fly, with the help of his friend, lists the places. Classrooms, rooms in the Fly building and the Lion building, around his locker and his ‘usual hangout’, as he calls it.

So off we went, on another quest that could result in nothing. Summer and Nero seem determined to find the pendant. We look and ask, and ask and look.

We end up not finding anything. Jeez, where could this kid’s pendant be?

Soon the last place to look is this ‘usual hangout’. We go to the Fly to ask then leave immediately to this lovely place. It turns out to be behind the building, how nice.

A few people are sitting in a circle talking. Oh look, it’s Circle Time, let’s chat our feelings away.

They stop talking as we approach, they look at us with worry, but one of them is glaring at us. “What do you want?” he spats. Wow, how rude, is he in the wrong group or are we in the wrong place?

“We’re helping your friend with looking for his pendant,” Summer replies slowly.

He gives us a rough laugh, the others fake chuckles. “Friend? What _friend_ are you talking about? The bimbo who lost his pendant? Or the outsider helping him? This is _his_ problem not _everyone else’s_. Why would you help him when it’s his own fault? Go snoop into someone else’s business.”

What a jerk. Wonder where Adaleyna's sister is.

We decide to ignore him and look around the place. He continues barking at us, saying not to go there or there, don’t touch that, back off, things like that. Shockingly he’s a Fly. How he ended up here is anybody’s wonder.

Someone comes to the back. It’s Daffy. He smiles a bit and shoos the group away from here. Finally, peace and quiet. His smile turns upside down when he faces us. Are we really that scary? He shuffles on the spot, fidgets with his fingers, opens his mouth then close them again. He tries again, but nothing comes out.

After Summer, Nero and Adaleyna encourage him some more. He spills, “there was a man that left the building before. I don’t know who he is. And I don’t think he’s from here.”

“How long was it,” Bianco asks.

“Uhh… maybe like… a few… maybe…” he starts stumbling over words as he thinks, “umm… I don’t know, like... I assume maybe like a while ago? Maybe an hour or two…?”

“Did you tell anyone before?” Daffy shakes his head. “Why?!” Bianco sighs and starts rushing off, Daffy’s gaze goes with him.

“Wait…” he turns to us, then mutters, “I only just got that information from a Fly…” We nod and quickly follow Bianco. Summer shouts a quick ‘thanks’ before leaving.

Rushing around is not fun. Rushing around looking for a man who may or may not have already left, is extremely not fun, add on the fact that it’s exhausting.

Nero and Black have a theory on what the man was doing inside the Fly building. Which is to steal the pendant. It makes sense I guess.

We try asking around. Some answers are useless, others are helpful until we realise that we’ve either been tricked or the answer is outdated.

The ringing of the bell, signifying the start of the next empty period, is muted over the sounds of screaming. I sigh, who’s being murdered this time? The others run to the source, I decide it’s not worth my time and go for a slow jog instead. Being killed is a daily occurrence, not sure what they’re panicking about and I’m tired, I want to rest. I turn the corner, almost crashing into some scared students, and lean away from a piece of paper being whirled around in a circle. I walk to my group. Small, weak tornadoes are sprinkled around here and there along the hall, and some are between us and a man.

Jeez, and I thought I looked tired. This man looks as though he’s never heard of a thing called sleep. His clothes are dirty and have a few rips here and there. Maybe he’s someone who’s been kicked out of his house and living on the streets for a few years. Maybe in the forest? There is one nearby.

This must be who Daffy was talking about. Let’s go through the checklist. A man, check. Looks strange, uh… sure, check. Has a tornado pendant, seems like it, check. Matches the description. This guy seems to have never used a pendant of any sorts before. The tornados are weak and random, clear signs of an inexperienced user. The two blue-haired males look indifferent, the girls plus the black-haired boys seem to be worried. Icy… is angry? Annoyed? Bianco looks... mad… .

Bianco starts shouting over the wind, “Stop what you’re doing!” The man doesn’t listen.

Instead, he flashes his teeth at us. He has two sharp teeth that one might even call fangs. His eyes glow red but they’re soon covered in blue again. If you squint hard, you can see that the red is still flowing around in there. I guess we can now put a more confident check on the ‘looking strange’ point, unless… this is... normal.

Bianco is surprised, and by the looks of it, so are the rest of us.

His brown hair whips around as he dashes away from us. “Halt!” Icy screams as he tears after the man. We snap out of our thoughts and take off after them.

The tornados slowly fade away and the objects that were being carried drops to the ground. Someone’s going to need to clean up and I hope it ain’t me.

The man is surprisingly fast for someone who looks like he’s been deprived of food and sunlight. Very pale, his skin. Icy is also quick, but not on the same level as the man it seems.

Following them and turning and running through different halls. We cease to a halt when we reach an open window. Who left this open? Icy is huffing by it and glaring outside, muttering in the other language of his. He lets out, “he escaped,” before continuing to be a grumpy ice block.

“But that would mean… we can’t get the pendant back,” Nero starts crying.

“Did you see his fangs? Or his eyes!? And he jumped out of the window! It’s like two storeys high!” Summer and Adaleyna begin to talk about the man being a vampire. That’s the first thing they think of when they see a strange man? We’ve been to ‘Hell’ and back, so the possibility of a vampire existing isn’t that ridiculous, is it?

Black goes to comfort his brother. Blue is frowning and sticking his head out and looking around. Blu is standing away, still looking indifferent. Bianco is frowning and muttering to himself, something about making the security a bit tighter.

Icy sighs and mumbles that he’s going to make a call. Doesn’t say to who, but hopefully the police. Black casts a worried look after him and goes to hug Blue, who in turns pats his head to comfort him.

“We won’t be able to follow him, he’s gone.” Blue comments. Now tears are flowing out of Nero’s eyes. Blu goes to comfort own his brother while Bianco awkwardly stands to the side, looking on.

“Come on, let’s go tell the owner of the pendant,” Summer sighs, going to comfort Nero. They lead the way and the rest of us follow.

While walking, Nero’s cries turn into sniffs and he approaches his look-alike and asks, “Are you okay? You seem to be sad about something else…”

Black responds towards his brother’s chest, “Recently, Big Brother’s been acting differently.”

“I know how that feels, but I’m sure he’ll eventually go back to normal. At least, we hope for that…” he comforts, then whispers, “for both brothers…” Bianco gives him a side glance. He might not be able to see it, but Blu is glaring into the side of his head. Nero proceeds to hug Black, and consequently Blue as well. Blue gives Nero a pat on the head like he did Black.

This is nice and everything. But a student is about to be expelled for our incompetence like Icy _could_ have frozen the guy, Bianco and I could have also, but we _didn’t_. So this is our fault, but it’s just _one_ guy leaving. That can’t be so bad, right? Right. So why do I have a bad feeling about this?


	27. Informing The Uninformed

We walk into the room in the Fly building again. We’re met with a strange sight. The Fly who had his pendant stolen is sitting and crying near a corner. Liam and Leah, who apparently have a lot of time on their hands but not enough to look for the pendant, are comforting the crying boy. His Lion friend is nowhere in sight. There is a dead Fly on the ground, at least that’s what I assume. Daffy… is here. The room is void of anyone else.

“Is this a good time to tell him?” I whisper to Summer. She shakes her head. Bianco opens his mouth but promptly shuts it again when he meets Summer’s glare.

Nero takes it upon himself to figure out what’s going on. For all we know, it could be a murder case. He walks up to the three close to the corner and asks, “what happened?”

“It’s... complicated,” Leah answers. “So about the pendant-”

Some loud angry footsteps approach us. It’s the Lion guy. He’s furious and death-staring at the lifeless Fly. His nostrils are flaring and his fists are clenching and unclenching. He seems like a person who would kill. Daffy steps away from him and comes closer to us, hiding a bit behind Blu. Not sure why him, but okay.

Black joins Nero and tries to explain what happened without causing mass panic or more tears than the ones already spilling. Summer and Adaleyna decide to help move the ‘dead’ Fly to a bed in another room. He’s unconscious, sadly, and not dead. It turns out he’s the rude Fly from before, shocking, I know. Blue and Blu made sure that the mad Lion isn’t going to attack the not-dead Fly. I really want him to though. Does this make me a bad person? Probably. Bianco and I stand side by side, awkwardly doing nothing. And Icy is still not here. Maybe _he’s_ dead.

The two black-haired boys manage to break the news. More tears flow out and Leah and Liam stiffen up and start questioning where he went. Blue says that he ran off the lot and into the streets somewhere. Adaleyna and Summer come back to look after the Fly while Leah and Liam go to talk to Bianco about security or something. Where are the teachers when you need them? Mr Eatheron is around only when he’s unwanted and that’s all the time. 

The Lion guy seems to have calmed down and goes to hug his Fly friend. That’s nice but what am I supposed to do? Everyone else seems to know what they’re doing. I’m still standing, not really helping nor doing anything.

The Fly soon stops crying and we’re told to leave him alone. Aside from his Lion friend, everyone else left. Bianco, Leah and Liam separate from the group, with Liam carrying the unconscious Fly to the nurse’s room. They’re going to have a meeting or something about strangers entering the school without permission.

The rest of us follow to hang out at the Dragon building. We sit in the Friendship Club room in silence. Nearly everyone except Blu are visibly upset though they might be on the inside.

Icy enters and we inform (or rather remind) him that the pendant's gone and the Fly is going to be expelled.

He's now sad, though I have this nagging feeling that he's not really. 

Blu goes to comfort Nero who has the face of a boy that's been scarred. Blue's looking after his own younger brother and Icy leaves again, apparently needing 'fresh air'. His youngest brother’s eyes follow him out.

Summer and Adaleyna are ashamed for not doing anything.

School ends with the dinging of the bell. We stand by the gate, waiting for Bianco and Icy. Students pile out and soon it’s empty with the occasional student walking out. This meeting is taking quite a while. Where even is Icy? He never returned.

We wait a few more minutes. We really ought to leave them. A group of people walk out. Two of which have white hair. Finally, they’re out.

“Hey sorry for taking so long.” Bianco grins slightly, “took a bit longer than expected” The others are the rank leaders and the Lion and Fly. The leaders leave but the other two stays as Nero asks to talk to them.

“I’m sorry for not getting your pendant back.” Nero sniffs, “now you’re not going to be able to come back…” he starts tearing up, “and it’s all my fault…”

“It’s alright, I wasn’t really good at fighting anyway,” the Fly answers. He gives him a smile, but Nero is still upset.

“But… we were supposed to help.” He mumbles as the two walk away. The wind blows his words away.

"Don't worry about it. You couldn't do anything more. The police are on the case and they'll probably find him and then I can come back!" The Fly says. Icy 'hmm's in response. Nero gives him a slight smile.

“Come on, let’s go home,” Bianco pushes Nero out and starts walking in the direction of what I assume is home, or maybe work.

The group separates again, this time to go home. Finally, home and it’s the weekends too! Time to sit in silence and ponder what makes life meaningful… again.


	28. The Fall Of A Club

Summer and I approach the school. The relaxation from the weekend slightly lingering, soon it'd be gone and I would yearn for it again.

Classes go by slowly. Nero's been moping and depressed the whole time. School really is a pain, isn't it? Once lunch hits, I feel relieved until I'm out of the room and in the hall full of crowds of loud students. I feel drained again. Summer drags me to the cafeteria where we meet the group. Though Nero is nowhere in sight.

"The pendant is taking a huge toll on him," Blu answers when we ask him what's up with his brother. Bianco looks away. "He wants us to meet in the club room after school." We agree then eat lunch, no one dares to say a word.

We approach the door of the Friendship Club. It's after school now. As we get closer to the door, the feeling of dread continues to grow in me. It's been with me since Friday. I've ignored it, now I wish I hadn't.

The door looks less welcoming than usual. Has it always felt like it would open to my doom?

We enter the room. Nero's the only one in here. His face holds a look of sadness. He gives us a miserable smile and gestures us to sit by the table. We sit and stare up at him.

He sniffs and starts to tear up. "T-the Fri-Friendship Club -" he stops and takes deep breaths. "I-is go-going to d-disband," he wipes away his tears.

"What!?" Adaleyna and Summer shouts.

"The club's going to be no more," Blu responds for his brother as he gets up to comfort him.

"But why!?" Summer demands an answer. She stands and starts ranting, "the Friendship Club is important to us and sacred to our hearts -" she keeps going. Adaleyna and Black join in with agreements and add in positive things.

By now Nero has slightly calmed down, "the club doesn’t do anything to help. Nobody really likes it anyways, not even my older brother likes it…” the death glare from Summer’s multicoloured eyes to Bianco’s head could not only be seen but felt as well. “Only my friends are a part of the club, no one else is and we couldn't even help the guy from last week… there is no friendship here. It's only a group, it doesn't mean anything to anybody…,"

"It means a lot to us. And obviously means a lot to you. So we’re going to help the club rise from the dead!" Summer exclaims. The rest of us agree, some genuinely interested, others wanting to make Nero happy again.

"We should ask other people to join, make posters to advertise," Adaleyna starts listing things.

"And talk to the Lion from last week! Let's see what we can do to help them!" Black adds in.

Soon we have a simple plan of what’s going to happen. Summer, Nero and Black would go to the Lion’s building to talk. The rest of us are to stay and start making posters and pamphlets. 

Blu and Blue leave the room, one to get a laptop, the other to get paper. We want to make most parts of the posters by hand and the pamphlets and the rest of the posters through the computer. Adaleyna goes off, wanting to find and invite Liam and Leah on our quest to revive the club. I stand to get the markers and pencils in the corner of the room. Nero has a lot of art supplies stashed there.

When I stand and my gaze skims past the top of the two white-haired males. I stop and look back. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? No, no, it’s not. I squint at Bianco’s hair a bit. It’s starting to go brown at the roots. Huh.

I quickly get the markers and pens and sit back down. Luckily, Bianco didn’t see me stare at him. God knows what’ll come out of his mouth if he did.

“So…” I start, breaking the awkward silence. I wonder how I should phrase this. “You both messed up.” Perfect.

“Yes, Winter. Good job figuring it out.” Bianco responds. Icy looks at me, confused. I stare back at him. Is he dense?

“You’re brother’s upset because you’re acting differently,” I tell him.

“Oh…,” he says, scratching his head. I set the markers in the middle of the table. We sit there in uncomfortable silence.

The door creaks open and the two blue-haired males enter. They both plop down and set their things down. They stare at their older brothers. “You both screwed up,” They say in unison.

“We know,” Bianco responds. Did they plan that? I start to pick one of the sheets of paper and I lay it in front of me. I stare at it.

“When are you going to fix this? Or are you going to make it worse?” Blu asks them. Icy looks at his brother who in turns looks away.

“I’ll try my best to make him happy again,” Bianco answers.

“And I’ll try to act normal again?” Icy questions more than answers. Blue sighs in response. We sit in silence. I ignore the glances sent by the males to one another and continue staring at the blank paper in front of me.

A while goes by before the door opens and Leah and Adaleyna enter. They both look around and sit. Each on one side of me. Not really fun, but whatever I guess… I continue to look down at the paper. The two start planning about what to do. When Adaleyna is asked about where Liam is, Leah responds to her, “He’s not really an arts and craft kind of guy, so he didn’t come. But he’s looking after Black, Nero and Summer.”

As they talk, Adaleyna picks one of the papers and starts jotting down things. “Maybe we should have classes! Like how to be friends and stuff!” She beams while continuing to scribble words down. 

“But the classes can’t be in here. Not all Dragons are as welcoming as you are. I got glared down by every inch of this building, imagine how a Fly would be.” Leah comments. “Maybe somewhere more accessible and friendly to all.”

“Right. I guess Nero should be the teacher. He’s good at making friends. This should be opened to everyone, but not everyone would go well together,” The conversation keeps going. 

My eyes go from staring to glaring at the paper on the table. It’s still blank. What do I put onto it?

“So I think my sister’s coming to this school soon. Maybe she could join the club,” Adaleyna states. Their exchange seems to have started to derail.

“That’s nice. New students are fun to meet, and I’m sure Nero would be happy with a new member,” The girl beside me bubbles. I can’t stand being around such happy forces.

Adaleyna laughs, “he’ll probably be less happy when he’s lying on the ground, hand and body no longer attached.” Blu and Bianco’s heads snap towards her. Blue gestures to cut the conversation.

“You sure do shine a violent, bloody spotlight on her,” I point out.

“There’s no need to shine a blood-red light on her when she’s usually covered in blood and off killing people,”

“Maybe it’s best that she doesn’t come here then…,” Bianco gives her a forced smile. She shrugs. We stop talking and keep working, though I have no clue what to put on. Maybe something like ‘Come join the club!’ or ‘Friendship and happiness awaits you!’. The former sounds better.

Adaleyna sighs into her work, “at least that’s what I think of her as based on her job. I only recently got to talk to her and that’s through messages. Probably going to be forced to stop soon. Gonna get my phone confiscated or something. Icy doesn’t like me talking to her, though he never says why.” Icy glares at her from across the table and she glares back.

Though they both promptly stop when the door creaks open again.


	29. Helping The Gone

"Alright! So we have a plan on what we're going to do to help Zack!" Nero beams, a whole lot happier than before. I give a quick glance to Icy and he's sitting smiling, though it falters at the sides.

"Who's Zack?" I ask.

"The Fly! Ralph is the Lion!" Nero huffs. Well, _sorry_ for not knowing. "Anyways, there are several ways for a person to get a pendant. Buying it, being lucky and finding one, being given one, trading, yadi-yadi-ya. I think that we should try saving up and maybe ask our parents for money."

"We... can't ask our parents...," I reply.

"Neither can we," Black responds, Adaleyna nods along.

"And you, Leah?" Nero glances at her.

"Probably, I'll see how much I can get," she says.

"Guess that's two groups of people," he frowns.

"I only count one," Bianco says.

"There's Leah and us?"

"We..." he starts moving his hands around as if trying to indicate something. "Can't?"

"Oh... I thought that maybe..." Bianco goes to comfort his brother, though it's only for a bit. He instantly cheers up.

"Right, so since most of us don't have parental support and pendants are expensive, we can't really buy one. We can try looking for the man who stole it, though finding him would probably be hard. Which is why we're going to need to ask around, see if anyone has a spare or something." People around the room voice their agreements.

"Does he want to come back?" I question, annoying Nero.

"Winter. Let me put it this way. We are going to help a tragic couple, separated through dumb rules be together again." I stare at him. What?

Black decides to reiterate what Nero just said, "We're going to help Ralph and Zack be together because they seem to _really_ like each other. Nero ships them, but it might be that they're just really close friends." I raise my eyebrow at this.

"Winter, you don't know what it's like to be in love! You're just an ice block!" Nero shouts. Jeez, ouch. Bianco chuckles quietly to himself. "And you're the same!" Nero yells at him.

"Nero, calm down. I can assure you, that this ice block's core is slowly melting." My eyebrow goes up, once again and so does Nero's.

"Really...?" He rubs his chin. "Anyways, let's start asking." He pumps his hand into the air. A variety of 'right's filled the room.

I turn to Icy, "do you have a spare pendant?"

He raises his eyebrow. "No?"

I turn to Blue and Black, "do you?" They shake their heads.

Lastly, I look at Adaleyna, who also shakes her head. How did they get their pendants matching their names?

We now have another quest that could only end in failure. We start figuring out and deciding how to split up. Whilst talking, I see Adaleyna thinking about something. So I ask her what's up. "Huh, oh nothing. Just realised that we still owe Mr Eatheron a debt of sorts." What? She shrugs me off when she sees the look on my face. Confusion written all over it, I suppose. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, she pulls it and looks, "I've been keeping my sister informed," she says. "Be right back, might just find what we need." With that, she runs out.

I leave with the three white-haired and two blue-haired males. Everyone else stays in the room to continue working. Nero decides that since I've done basically nothing, I should leave. I sigh happily, though the relief is short lived, like everything else in life.

Wandering around and asking people is tiring. I swear coming here caused me to get more exercise than anywhere else. Words soon start spewing and slowly becomes robotic. Go to a person, ask, thank them for not having a spare, go to the next person. Repeat, repeat and repeat. Soon, we either run out of people to ask or they've already left. A majority already left while we were in the room, so not many people we could ask to start with.

We meet up in a cross section of the halls. An old voice screaming could be heard from down one of the halls. We race to there, opening the door, we see Mr Eatheron lying on the ground. I think he's struggling to breathe. Bianco slowly lifts him, Icy helps and they carry him to the nurses'.

We follow them, though a lot slower and more reluctant. Adaleyna comes back. "Hey! Did you find a pendant?" She asks. Blue shakes his head. "Well, guess what?!" She pulls out a pendant shaped like running legs. "I've got a pendant!"

"Where...?" I start, hoping she would understand.

"I have my ways..." she tries to keep it at that, but it bursts out of her. "My sister somehow got a spare. Don't ask how, I don't know. But she says that she 'killed two birds with one stone'. I think I know what that means, but like she could have meant it in a more literal way." She takes a breath. "Where are you guys going?"

"The nurses'. Something happened to Mr Eatheron," Blue replies.

"Really? Huh, well, let's go," Adaleyna says.

We enter the nurses' room, the place is covered in white. One of the beds has its curtains wrapped around it. Closed and secretive. Bianco and Icy stand outside and near it. "He's fine, just got a fright from something," Bianco states. How sad. "He keeps muttering 'monster' or something." He shrugs it off. "Probably got pranked or saw a mouse or something."

"Well, it doesn't really matter! Your search may have been futile, but mine was not!" Adaleyna exclaims. She shows off the pendant, all smug and everything. "C'mon! Let's go to Nero!"

This is going along too well... maybe I'm being too negative. At least Nero would be happier now, and so would this 'couple'.

Adaleyna more than bursts into the club room. Waving the pendant towards Nero. His face lights up like a thousand newly-installed light bulbs. They start dancing around the room. A victory dance, maybe? Regardless, they're happy and our quest went well enough.

"Right, so time to give this pendant to Ralph!" Nero beams.

I get dragged to the Lion building by Summer. Ralph isn’t here but Liam is. Adaleyna goes to him to tell him of the plan and Nero’s classes. He nods firmly in agreement several times.

We decide to wait around for Ralph. Sitting on a couch while waiting. Some of us should have stayed back in the room to do work. This is boring. I glance to the side. Black is sleeping on Icy. Nero is super happy, he can barely stand still, let alone sit. 

I let out a groan of boredom and lean my head back onto the couch. Bianco chuckles, “At least he’s cheered up”.

“Mhm,” I respond, “though you barely had a part in it,” He punches me gently. “You’re _such_ a cruel person.”

“I could be worse.”

“I’m going to go and get a poster from the club room to hang on the notice board they have here. With Liam’s permission, obviously,” Summer jumps onto the couch, leans in and whispers. “Also, sorry if I’m interrupting anything. Not really though.” She pokes my cheek childishly and hops off the couch and out of the building.

In comes Ralph. A bit puffed out, but alive. Nero skips his way to him and hands him the pendant. Both are overjoyed. To show his gratitude, Ralph gives Nero a big hug. Cute, but he might be suffocating. They have a mini celebration over there while the rest of us watch on. Summer comes back and hangs a poster. Leah decides to stay. And then we’re gone.

The quest went well though the one thing that went bad was Mr Eatheron nearly dying. He’s not dead and that’s the problem. Maybe he would take sick days or something. Hopefully. Am I a bad person for wishing an old man dead? He’s the rude one and stuff, death _is_ what awaits him. 

“Alright, sit down everyone!” Nero commands. We do so. Around the table, we plop down. “So, I’ve put a lot of thought into this, but I’ve decided to not close the club. It’s clear that we can still have an impact on people, even if we fail sometimes.”

Cheers of happiness are heard from us. Woo hoo. Problem solved.

After school Bianco approaches me, “Camp is slowly coming. It’s a week out in the wilderness in groups to train and become more independent. So I was wondering if you would like to be in my group. There’s the whole ah.. ‘Friendship’ group in it and the rank leaders.”

I sigh, “sure, there’s no one else I can really group up with.”

“Oh good. Though I took your advice and asked your sister first. She agreed for both of you. So you can’t say no even if you wanted to.” He smiles. I stare at him.

_Great_ , he knows how to use Summer against me.

Though I wonder how fun camp would be. Alone in who knows where.

It can’t be that bad. Right?


	30. The Sister

A new student is coming today. Camp is starting on Monday of next week. So she has only today before she's shoved into a bus filled with a group of immature children. 

The whole Friendship Club is eager to meet her. We wait outside the school building.

A strange girl approaches. She wears a lot of blue. A blue giant jacket, giant blue scarf, light blue skirt, blue shoes, blue leggings, and a giant blue messenger bag. Her hair has a blue strain while the rest is black with small hints of white. One eye is covered by blue hair. The main part of her that you can see is her black eye.

The resemblance between her and her sister isn’t very much. One has multicoloured hair, the other has purple hair. One has a black eye, the other has purple. One wears blue and the other wears, what I would consider normal, casual clothes. But then again, my twin and I look nothing alike and we wear clothes like we’re in different hemispheres.

Adaleyna runs up to her and squashes her in a hug. She looks confused yet she doesn’t try to unravel from the arms of her sister. Adaleyna drags the girl to us. “Guys, this is my sister, Ophelia,” She says. Black seems to be over-excited all of a sudden. The girl waves lazily and she’s greeted with several hellos. But Icy doesn’t say hello, he doesn’t say anything. Just stares at her like she’s from an alien or something.

The girl looks at each of us and stares. Her eye shows no interest, but she tilts her head to the side like a curious toddler. After she’s done creepily watching, her eye lits up and her head starts darting around, taking everything in. The school is big, but it’s nothing new compared to other schools. 

“Come on, let’s get you to the office,” Adaleyna bubbles, once again dragging her sister along. 

“Yay! We have someone new, let’s make sure she has the best time on her first day!” Nero beams as the rest of us follow.

We have to attend an assembly at the start of the day. She goes on to wander around. The next two periods are watching matches at the Arena. 

Ophelia joins us during this. She sits next to Adaleyna. While we watch people fight to climb the ranks, Bianco says, “Since Ophelia is new and she won’t be able to fight next week because of the camp. The leaders and I think that we should judge her skills while at camp and then decide whether she should be in our rank or not,” That does sound nice. “If that doesn't work well then we'll do matches at the camp. She’s already agreed to it.” I nod in response.

I turn and look at the said girl. She’s one row below and to the left by a seat. She’s staring at the two people below. She’s not blinking, it’s similar to what she was doing this morning. Her head moves up and she looks at me, she tilts her head. I give her a fake smile and turn back to the match. I feel her gaze not leaving my head for a while. She only changes her view when her sister offers her popcorn that she got from Black.

Next is lunch. We sit around a table. Nero and his brothers have gone to buy food, the rest of us have brought food. The new girl brings out several lunch boxes, four rectangular boxes and two shaped like a bowl. She moves the bowl to Icy and Blue. One seems like the happiest man on Earth, the other has no clue what’s going on. She moves one box to her sister, who opens it and sees four giant chocolate muffins. She moves another rectangular box towards Black. He opens it and sees some chocolate chip cookies. His eyes become stars as he stares at the food in front of him, mouth agape. Her second last box is moved towards me and my sister, I open it and see different types of sweets and food. She then opens her box and pulls a sandwich out whilst being hug-attacked by her sister. Blue gets rice with steamed fish and Icy gets rice with beef. Icy creates a spoon out of ice and practically inhales the whole meal down.

The three brothers come back and see all the food. Bianco tilts his head slightly. Black flags Nero to the seat on his side and passes him a cookie. The other two sit near us and we pass some food around.

The next period is spent sitting at the arena again to watch. Summer has disappeared to fight in some of the matches. Bianco also went off to defend his title as king of the school. Ophelia isn’t here as she continues to explore the school, something about the fights being too boring. I agree too.

The last two periods are free. Our group wanders around trying to look for the girl. The two who fought came out victorious, Summer went up a few spots and Bianco is still the top dog.

We come close to the arts section of the school. A piano could be heard being played. We decide to take a peek.

And who do we see playing? The one and only Ophelia. We open the door more and let ourselves in. Her eye is closed but it opens and looks at us. Her hands are still on the keys. Never messing up or missing a beat. "May I help you?" She asks us.

We end up dragging her off and out and into the Friendship Club room. The basics are explained to her. The rules and everything. She shows no emotion through the explanation. She might be showing but it's hard to tell with how much her face is covered.

"How about we play a get-to-know-you game or some other game together?" Nero asks. We can't really say no as he's already decided otherwise.

“Sounds fun, but I’m not sure you can get much from someone who has as much personality as a shoe?” Icy questions, bored and drawing with his finger on the table.

“Icy!” Nero begins, “don’t be so rude!” Black shakes his head in agreement, brows frowned.

“I’m sure I have much more than a simple ice block.” the girl states. Nothing is shown from her face.

“Don’t start too!” Nero complains.

“I highly doubt that, _Fox_.”

She tilts her head. “I thought I was a shoe, _Dragon_.”

They both glare at each other. Lightning shooting from both eyes.

“Stop!! Don’t be like this!” Nero whines. Trying to intervene between the two.

“Big brother! Stop trying to pick a fight!” Black shouts at his eldest brother, covering his eyes. “Maybe we should do something else.”

“It’s fine, you can keep doing what you want to do. I’ll just leave” The girl says, raising from her spot.

“No!! But this activity needs you in it.” Nero responds hurriedly. Attempting to get her to sit back down.

“Sit down. Icy stop being a jerk.” Adaleyna commands her sister and Icy. She pulls her sister’s scarf, not allowing her to escape. Icy shuts up and Ophelia sits down, “let’s begin the game,”

The game we play is Pictionary. Icy creates an ice block in the shape of a portable whiteboard. The ice falls off and a whiteboard forms beneath it. Ophelia grabs a marker from her bag. The game went by fast and it went alright. Most of us shout at the picture being drawn.

The game ends and the final school bell tolls its ring. We all leave. Camp slowly creeps into my mind.


	31. A Loud Bus Ride

The weekends are here. But instead of relaxing and mucking about 'till the next week starts. Summer and I are packing our bags. We don't really have much to pack. Most of the camping stuff would be provided. Only need clothes and basic essentials.

Adaleyna is nice enough to offer our cat to be looked after by her family friends while we're gone. We gladly accept. It's either them or our shifty neighbours. We’re going to be gone from work, not sure how it’s going to be run but Ethan and Leonardo said everything will be fine and happily pushed us out of the restaurant when we went to inform them.

The days fly by and next, I know, I'm filing into one of the buses. Suitcase stored. Heads are being counted. The engines roar, coming to life.

Summer sits with Adaleyna. Nero sits with Blu. Icy sits with Blue. Ophelia and Black sit together. Bianco and I take our seats next to each other. We're all sitting close to each other but it's hard to talk to people behind you.

I'm in the window seat. My eyes wander around, house to house. I could hear Summer and Adaleyna talking about common interests, Nero being excited and sharing that excitement with his brother. Ophelia is showing her teddy bear to Black, it's called Teddy. Icy and Blue are quiet. Bianco and I make no conversation of our own.

Until he opens his mouth, “ready for camp?”

I sigh, still not looking at him, “no.” The girls behind thought it would be fun to start singing annoying, never-ending songs. It really irks me, but I say nothing about it.

“Those two seem to be,” Bianco comments.

“Mhm.”

“What do you want to do?” 

“Nothing much.” 

“Have you gone camping before?”

“No.”

Finally realising that the conversation starters are going nowhere and that I didn’t want to talk, he stops trying. Ophelia starts handing around macarons to the people in the group. Bianco hands one to me and we quickly eat it all.

I register the noises made by the others on the bus. Some are starting to ask who was giving out macarons. Others are singing along with Summer and Adaleyna, there are also those who are shouting and screaming at them to shut up. Teachers are trying to keep the peace but their actions do nothing.

Letting another sigh, I try to ignore the noises. But to no avail, their screams are louder than ever.

The bus ride slows to a close when the bus pulls into a parking lot near the forest. 

We file out, making sure to get all our things. We walk a bit into the forest and wait outside an information cabin. People dressed in uniform come out. The students quiet down.

They open their mouths and begin to explain.


	32. Spending Time With The Crazed

The people in uniform start explaining the rules. Don’t kill people, survive by yourself, any emergency then come to the cabin here, try not to poison yourselves, don’t burn down the forest, etc, etc.

“Gather into groups, everyone!” One of the teachers shouts. The chatter of students begins as they move from one person to another. I look around. Summer is near me. Bianco is practically behind me. Icy, Black and Blue are together. Adaleyna and Blu are somewhere. Nero is close and his back is turned towards me. His head is dashing around the groups of people surrounding him. I’m surprised his neck isn’t broken with how fast he’s doing it.

I place a hand on his shoulder, he jumps a bit and turns to look at me. His eyes are blue. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” I say.

“Winter!” He breathes a sigh of relief, gripping onto me. “Thank goodness you’re here!”

“Nero…?” He nods energetically.

“Yeah, that’s me? What’s wro- Oh! I wear contacts. So do my brothers! That’s all!” Right… I pull him and push through people to reach the gathering of our group.

“You two are here, that’s good,” Bianco grins, I finally realise his eyes are brown. Looking at Blu, his eyes are the same; brown.

We stand around for a few more minutes. Though time flies by like a dead bird. Soon the students are forced to quiet down again.

“Can one person in each group raise their hand so one of the staff members can find you and lead to where you will be going?” A man in uniform shouts as small bursts of chatter breaks out in groups.

Black pushes his brother’s arm up to try and distract him from arguing with Ophelia about some sort of minor thing. It doesn’t do much. People in other groups are starting to stare at the couple. Liam pushes between the two, Icy’s hand drops down while Liam’s goes up. Leah pulls the girl away and towards a mini group within our group. Summer and Adaleyna begin trying to calm her down.

“They never stop do they?” Bianco asks me and his brother.

“No, it’s a bit of a problem,” Nero mumbles. “What do you think happened between the two?” The two then begin a somewhat bonding conversation.

The man in a uniform from before approaches the group and begins to lead us away. He starts explaining things. Repeating what to do and not do. It’s hard to listen to the conversation between the two brothers behind me and the infuriating glares being shared between the black-haired girl and the white-haired boy in front of me. Great, I’m spending time with loud, problematic students for nearly a week.

We soon reach our campsite or rather land with trees and more trees. The man leaves us with some camping equipment. This includes tents, pots, and lamps among other things. My eyes do a run over of what everyone’s doing. Leah, Liam and Bianco are talking about what to do. Bailey, Daffy and Ethan are talking amongst themselves. Summer and Adaleyna are looking around. Black, Nero, Blu and Blue are talking and scouting the area. Ophelia and Icy are, once again, arguing.

We decide that this place is a terrible place to set up camp at. Ophelia directs us to a small river nearby. We follow. 

We walk in a line with two or three people in a row. Talking starts and somehow the topic of family and parents come up. We listen while Leah talks about her nice, happy, _perfect_ family. If only I could say the same about mine. We listen to Liam talking about his strict parents. At least his parents care. Bailey decides to contribute by contrasting Leah’s parents by saying his are ‘deadbeats’ and alcoholics.

The mindless chatter goes into more positive areas with favourite foods being talked about, favourite games, and a few more topics casually being tossed around. Even favourite torture method, started by the girl covered in blue.

After a few more minutes of loud chatter and trekking, we reach the river. We’re covered in a few scratches but otherwise fine. The place looks pretty nice too. The riverbank goes from rocky to grassy areas where we are and the place is pretty flat and smooth.

We collectively decide this is the place we want to be.


	33. Camping With a Newbie

We set up tents that were given. Icy starts trying to catch the occasional fish that swims through by swimming in the river. Bianco and Nero are looking for worms to fish with. Leah and Liam are making a campfire. Bailey is trying to set up a tent, though he's not going very well. Daffy and Ethan are trying to help. Blue and Blu are scouting the area nearby for animals and food. Summer and I are organising all the other junk we were given. And Adaleyna ... she's gone somewhere with her sister, no mentions of where or how long, just that they were going.

So far a great start. Summer spots a bush of berries and begins to forage. But Ophelia leans out from above the bush and slaps her hand away. Giving her a bit of a fright. "That's poisonous," she simply states.

She and her sister come out of the bush, each carrying a bowl made from dried grass filled with fruits. She hands the bowl to Summer. "Here, these won't kill you," she quickly adds in, "Hopefully."

“Um? Okay?” Summer takes the bowl and places it near the fire while Adaleyna does the same. Ophelia grabs a spear from her messenger bag and spears a fish that Icy fails to catch.

The day goes by and soon it’s night. “Should we do the stereotypical horror stories around the campfire?” Leah asks, her face glowing orange from the fire. We’re eating meals that Ophelia cooked up. Mutters of agreements and disagreements arise from the rest of us.

“I’d rather not, I’m not a big fan of horror,” Daffy replies, a few people nod in agreement.

“What about just normal stories then?” Leah questions.

“Okay, as long as they’re not scary.” He responds.

“So… who has any?” Her head darts to and from each of our faces. No one answers for a few minutes, she starts, “well, how abo-” and she’s interrupted.

“I have one, my parents enjoyed telling it to me when I was a child,” Ophelia energetically raises her hand, Leah nods for her to continue. “So, there’s a place called Superior, though it is more like a bunch of dimensions collectively called Superior…”

The story told went from death and war to happiness because of some gods. I won’t really consider it a story to tell kids, but whatever makes her feel happier.

“That place sounds nice,” Leah says.

“Oh no, it’s an absolute nightmare. Everyone just gobbles up whatever is thrown at them by the gods.” the girl responds, her head tilted to the side and her closed eyelid raised with her cheeks. 

No one finds what she just said as weird. Liam seems dead. Bailey and Ethan are bored. Leah, Daffy, Nero and Summer are happy. Blue also seems dead inside. Bianco is trying to smile. Blu’s indifferent. Icy is glaring at the girl. Black seems horrified by what she just said, mouth agape and all. Adaleyna looks confused. I don’t know how I feel.

“I think I’m going to sleep. It’s getting late.” Liam mumbles, tossing his food remains into a hole that was dug and labelled ‘trash hole’. It’s for trash unless it’s not biodegradable or not good for the environment. Chuck anything bad in there and your head will be stuck onto a pike by one of the girls, Nero or Black.

Ethan yawns and gets up. “I’m going too. Goodnight.” 

“We’re going too,” Bailey says, referring to him and Daffy. They both leave for their tent. Blu gets up, gives a dull wave and enters his and Nero’s tent.

“Anybody else?” Leah asks, looking around. Nero shrugs, yawns and is taken to his tent by Bianco. Bianco goes to his and Icy’s tent after. “So…?” Nobody else gets up. “Any more stories?”

“Uh… sure?” Summer starts. “So… once upon a time …” She continues by making up the story as it goes on, sometimes one of the others would add into it. Nothing made sense but it was slightly fun.

It’s now a lot darker and quite late. We start to leave for bed. “Goodnight!” Ophelia shouts before disappearing among the trees.

“There’s no space in the tents,” Adaleyna answers our unasked question.

I enter the tent with Summer already in bed. “Night, Winter,” she sighs.

“Night.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've changed the name of Alison to Adaleyna and her sister's to Ophelia. Sorry for the confusion!


	34. Exploration

We wake and prepare for the day. Most of us want to explore the forest. We just want to see what’s around us without needing to set up a new camp everywhere. 

Ophelia is in the middle of cooking breakfast while some of us either wander around nearby or play in the river. Liam and Bailey have gone further in to explore. 

Summer and I, or rather Summer, are by the river. Blue is enjoying himself in the water while Bianco, Nero, Icy and Black are having a water fight. Blu is on the sidelines making sure no foul play is happening. Adaleyna is climbing trees and Leah is too, though she has more help from her pendant. Ethan and Daffy are sitting and waiting for their food to be ready.

Delicious food is served on a nice platter. Everyone here is eating, save for Bianco who finished first and set off to find the two boys. They've been gone for a while but not so long that we're worried. 

The three of them come back a while later. “We found some old stone ruins,” Liam points aimlessly behind him.

“Really?” Leah asks, giving them their food. “Let’s go explore together once you’ve finished.”

“Yay!” Nero exclaims.

“Do I have to go?” Daffy mumbles. 

“Mm, it’d be fun,” Bailey replies, mouth full of food.

We flatten plants and cross the forests. Everything looks the same. Trees, trees, trees. Daffy is in front of me, clinging onto Bailey’s arm. Jumping at every sound. Moving away from every plant, tree, rock. Basically everything. Summer and Nero are behind me, whispering excitedly about what they could find. Treasure, art, skeletons. Whatever flows through their brain comes out of their mouth.

Soon we reach a clearing in the forest, showing stone buildings and a statue of two humanoids. The forest still infringes on the borders of the ruins. Stone is everywhere. The path. The buildings. Broken pieces of the houses lay scattered around. Some are somewhat in tack and have vines, spiderwebs, mosses and random other objects wrapped around them.

The humanoids statue is, unsurprisingly, made of stone and rock. Cracked here and there and also has plants folding around some places. It’s of two women standing back to back, one wearing a dress, the other wearing a fantasy-like coat. They both have long hair. One is holding a sword up and another is holding it down into the ground. Both sport a pair of wings on their backs, the one with the sword up one outstretched, the sword down one is folded.

“This is… interesting?” Adaleyna faulters, looking around. All of our heads wander from one point to another.

We wander around, looking up at the statue. Exploring the once lively village of stone. 

There isn’t much around here. A village that is forgotten in time should bring some interest but there isn’t much. There are paintings around. I kneel next to Icy as he stares at one. Ophelia approaches and jumps onto his back. “Hmm… That doesn’t look like you that much. I give it… 7 out of 10.” she states playfully, looking over his shoulders. He hums in response.

I look at the painting of a white dragon with blue eyes. Wings outstretched and a front leg raised. I walk away and see more pictures of dragons. It’s the same three dragons. The white dragon with blue eyes, black dragon with red eyes and blue dragon with blue eyes. There’s a repetition of the same two types of flowers too, the blue rose and purple lily.

I approached the statue of the ladies and I circle it.

All of a sudden, a cloud of water rushes around some of us. Circling us. Then attacking our heads and neck. Wrapping tightly around our necks and drowning us in a sphere of water stuck to our heads. We couldn’t make any noise to the people stuck in awe away from us. 

I’m struggling to breathe. I’m not sure who’s doing this but I hope, I wish, I pray that it isn't _them_. My sight slowly fills with spots of black and I go limp.

This isn't good.


	35. Captured

My head feels like stone, heavy and a deadweight to my neck. Wet and soaking. A rope is tightly tied around me. I tiredly look to my side and see Black, I think, sleeping and similarly as wet as me. He’s also tied up. I’m sore all over, the ground is hard. I hear lots of water raining buckets somewhere. 

Someone wearing grey pants bumps into me from my other side. I raise my head slowly and meet white eyes.

“Are you alright?” Bianco quietly asks me, he’s tied up like me.

“Mhm,” I respond.

“That’s good,” he whispers. “We’ve been captured by some criminals. They’ve taken our pendants. And we’re waiting-”

“Shut up!” A dishevelled man shouts and approaches us. He crouches down to my level and stares. “Aren’t you a cutie?” 

I look at him in disgust while Bianco promptly spits in his face. “You shut it,” he sneers. The man roughly slaps him and stomps away with a red face.

“Are you alright?” I whisper to him. He flashes a grin at me, ignoring the wince he made. I glare at the group of men hanging around tents and chatting away. I overhear them speak about selling our pendants. I glare at them and look around. All of us are wrapped in rope, some are awake, some are asleep. Summer is asleep. “I’m going to break out.” Bianco watches me with curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

I start freezing the rope. It snaps. I stand and send ice around the place. Tents fall. Ice rips through them. I breathe out a breath of cold air. 

The people run to me, attacking. I make an ice wall, the attacks hit it instead of us. I run towards where Summer is, extending the ice wall. Some take out weapons and charge at me. Knives swing around, getting stuck in ice or hitting nothing but air, bullets fly through the sky but get lodged into ice or become lost in the bushes.

Reaching Summer, I freeze her ropes to snap and begin slapping her with my cold hands. She wakes with a jump. “No time to chat, just fight,” I shout at her, dragging her up. 

She jumps into action and starts burning people. I do the same but freeze their faces off. Soon, the camp is nothing but ice and fire. People lay on the ground, some may be dead and others unconscious. 

“Jeez, you guys sure did a number on them,” a voice comments, we turn around and see Ophelia. Not bound but neither are the other guys. She plays around with a blue knife in her hand, "though, you did let some escape. But it's fine. Shouldn't be too big of a problem to deal with," she swings one of her arms to the side and a strong blast of wind kills all living flames.

She wanders around the wrecked camp. Everyone else walks around, waking people who are still unconscious, those who don't respond get carried. She hands us our pendants. Juggling the pendants that aren't ours. "They're kinda dead so they have no use for them," she explains to her sister, who in turn scolds her.

When we're all set, Ophelia, with Icy cradled in her arms, leads us back to our campsite. "Do you want to give that friend of yours a better pendant?" She asks her sister. Adaleyna shakes her head in response, dragging an unconscious Liam behind her. Muscles are heavy. Leah is also dragging him, probably wishing that he'll wake up soon.

He does, but when we're close to the site. The two ladies thanked the Heavens that it was over.

The sleeping people are placed in their tents. The rest of us relax while the girl in blue disappears to gather ingredients and whatnot. Says that we don’t have to worry about the rest of the kidnappers.

Overall, a pretty terrible day. But I'm kind of happy that I was only kidnapped by some wannabe bandits and not dangerous people. Extremely dangerous.


	36. Truth or Dare

The day after we spend most of our time around our camp, making a mental note of where the ruins are. 

“So, Leah and I were talking and we decided to play a game to cheer people up!” Nero exclaims. “It’s Truth or Dare!” I hear audible groans from some people. “Do you guys have any better games to play?” he huffs at the groaners, specifically Bailey. He raises his hands in mock defeat. “Truth or Dare is going to work by someone asking ‘Truth or Dare’ to another, they pick one and the asker asks them a question if they’ve picked truth and they must, _MUST_ , tell the truth,”

“And if the person picked dare then they are given a dare and must do it, blah, blah, blah, no opting out, this is for bonding purposes!” Leah continues for Nero. “Now sit around the campfire!”

Everyone obeys, there’s not much else we can do. “So, before we start, let’s put down some rules for the dares. No inappropriate things like saying kiss that person and such,” Leah comments. “Does anyone want to go first with picking a person?”

“Oo! Oo! I want to!” Summer bubbles, frailing her arm around. “Alright now let’s see…,” she looks from person to person. Don’t make eye contact, don’t make eye contact. “Liam!” I sigh a breath of relief. “Truth or dare!”

He gives her a blank stare, “truth,” Summer pouts childishly. “Fine, fine. Dare,” Summer gives him an evil grin.

“Winter! Give me an ice block!” she demands. I make one for her. “Now,-” She faces Liam with a mean face. Her aura gives her the persona of a devil with horns and a tail, swishing from one side to the other. “- put this down your back!” Liam seems to wish to disappear. He runs his hand down his face but cannot do anything as Leah gleefully releases a cold block of ice down the back of his shirt. We laugh at his reaction, he leaves quickly to change.

Sitting back down, he looks at Leah, “Truth or dare?” 

She smiles, “Dare! Try your worst you oversized lion,”

“Oh, I will,” Liam responds. Daffy leans in from the side and whispers into his ear. Liam brightens up. “Does anyone have marshmallows?” 

“Here,” Ophelia chucks him a bag of marshmallows.

“Thank you. Now Leah, shove some into your mouth then start singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” The bag gets passed to Leah and she starts at her doom.

“Here goes nothing…,” She begins. One marshmallow goes in, she sings then another and another. It's kind of hilarious but it's at her expense.

After she finishes with her dare, she cleans herself up and looks at Bianco. "Truth or dare?"

"There hasn't been a truth yet so I choose that," Bianco responds.

"I would have thought you would choose dare. Nevertheless, you have fallen into my trap! Now tell us, who do you like?" 

"Hmm…? Why this question of all?"

"Because you mentioned something about your icy heart-melting! Now answer the question!" Nero leans forward, waiting for his response.

"I like… Nero, as a brother,"

"That's not what I want!" Leah scowls, Bianco grins. Nero glares at him.

"Well, since you like me so much, can I ask a person for you?" Nero gives his brother some innocent puppy dog eyes.

"Uh, sure. Sure, why not," He replies.

"Icy, truth or dare?"

"I don't trust you as much, so truth," Icy states.

"You, like my brother, have fallen into my trap!" Nero exclaims. "Who do you have a crush on?!"

"Wha-"

"Who do you have a crush on??" Nero interrupts.

“Well. Um. It’s her...,” Icy indicates Ophelia.

“Oooo! That’s so exciting!” Adaleyna squeals and turns to her sister, “who do you have a crush on?”

“It’s not your turn to ask a question. Either way, I’m not going to answer that. My head would get bashed before I can do it to you,” she replies, Icy falters for a bit. “I’m going to go,” she stands despite the protests of some of us. Adaleyna is about to say something but she starts before her, “I know where you sleep,” 

“And I… do not,” Adaleyna responds. The girl waves us off and walks off.

“Wait, but Little Gem!” Black calls after her, he jumps up and leaves too. “Wait, come back!” is the last we could hear from him.

“So… that didn’t turn out well,” Adaleyna scratches the back of her head. 

“Anyways, it’s your turn,” she says to Icy.

He glares off into the trees. Turning, a fake smile plastered on his face. “Sure, how about Winter, truth or dare?” 

My heart sinks, but there’s no way out of it. “Truth,”

“What’s your biggest fear?”

I know the answer already. But I don’t tell them. I can’t. “Summer when she’s angry.”

“Really?” He raises his eyebrows. He stares as though he can see through lies. “Alright then. It’s your turn.”

I don't know who to ask. Out of desperation, I turn to Summer. "Truth or-" I start but am promptly interrupted by Black walking back without Ophelia though he seems more cheerful.

"What's with you?" Icy asks him.

"I've got a crystal pendant. Something tells me it's from the dead. Ophelia traded with me. This pendant for my shadow one," he happily chirps.

"Hush you two! There's a game going on!" Leah scolds.

"I'm gonna go check on my sister. Be back in a bit," Adaleyna states, leaving right after.

So the game goes on. Adaleyna comes back, still no sign of Ophelia while Summer is dared to walk in a straight line after spinning, she falls into the river. Blue saves her, albeit begrudgingly. 

Daffy chooses truth and describes the person closest to him. Blonde, messy hair that’s shaved on both sides. Buffish. He watches Bailey as he speaks.

Bailey is dared to catch a fish from the river using his hands. He fails hilariously and receives a few slaps from the fish.

Blu chooses to tell the truth and says who he hates; "my eldest brother," he indifferently answers. Bianco is completely unfazed but he does get a sympathetic pat from Icy. Nero, on the other hand, is horrified.

Blu allows Nero to choose the next person which is Black. He blushes his way to answering the question of who he’s dating or has dated. With so much stammering, we don’t get a straight reply.

The game goes on and on. It becomes dark when Ophelia comes back with dinner. We happily chow down with small chatters here and there. Though Ophelia says nothing despite the efforts of Adaleyna and Black.

Today’s been fun. Maybe I should live in the present. Stop focusing on the past and future and be happy. Maybe. But thinking of the past is enough to make me want to cease to exist.


	37. Doubling Up

“So, we haven’t really gotten a good look at what you can and can’t do to assess which rank you should be in,” Bianco tells Ophelia. “There was the whole kidnapping fiasco but it didn’t show much,” she pointedly stares at him. “Which is why we’re going to need to host some fights for you,” she nods quietly.

“Oo! Oo! Let’s do tag battles! Two on two,” Summer bubbles, raising and waving her hand around. I’m the one who stares at her, she acts like a restless school child, which I guess she is.

“I will happily fight all of you at the same time than work with someone else,” Ophelia states quietly. 

Summer pouts but Bianco takes his chance, “Being good at fighting not only means you fighting well. It also means being good at fighting in teams and working together.”

As she listens she looks as though she wants to die. If she had a ground pendant then she would have made a hole to swallow her up. “It’d be fun!! How about I be with you?” Adaleyna butts in. “Or maybe we just put you in Dragon? Everyone new has joined it so far.” She drags her near the river regardless of her struggles. She gives up in the end.

Bianco walks towards the river where it’s clearer. Summer and I watch from our spot by the fire. “So you and Adaleyna will be fighting in a pair against another pair,” he explains, “So the pairs will be Daffy and -”

“I surrender!” Daffy shouts.

“Alright then, the first pair will be Bailey and Ethan,”

“Oh, great,” Ethan's mumbles is audible from inside his and Liam’s tent. Bailey just sighs.

“Next pair would be Leah and Liam,”

“Yay!” Leah cheers.

“I hope it’ll be fun to work with you,” Liam says to Leah.

“And then you’ll have to fight me, alone,” Bianco finishes.

“Woohoo…,” the girl raises one hand lifelessly, “can’t wait.”

“Oh, cheer up!” Adaleyna slaps her hard on the back but she doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“So here’s the plan-” she starts while she sits down, pulling Adaleyna along. Bailey and Ethan go in front of them. “we sit and let Teddy do the work.” 

“Everyone ready?” Bianco asks. He receives a few nods in response. “Start!”

Ethan turns into a wolf while Bailey gets into a fight stance. Adaleyna looks worried. Ophelia pulls out her teddy bear from god-knows-where and chucks it at Bailey. The force of which the bear is thrown causes Bailey to stumble a bit. The bear starts moving, punching and, I don’t know, pawing? Audible ‘take this! And that!’ can be heard from the bear. Bailey is swearing with every known word of mankind. His mother would not be proud of his mouth, assuming she ever was.

Ethan watches the bear, unsure of what to do. In the confusion, Ophelia stands and picks the wolf up by the tail. A look from her and Ethan can be seen wishing to be dead. “Aren’t you a cute puppy? But when was the last time you showered?” She then promptly chucks him into the river, where he struggles to swim and changes back to being human. She heads to Bailey and peels Teddy off of him. “Boop!” she goes while hitting him hard on the head, effectively knocking him out. “So, who’s next?” she questions Bianco.

“We are!” Leah enthusiastically answers. Liam seems to not want to go. She pulls him to where Bailey and Ethan once were while some of the other boys take Bailey to his tent and fish Ethan out of the river. Ophelia heads to her starting position where her speechless sister is.

“I was worried you would kill them,” is all she says.

“Don’t worry, they’re still under 18,” Ophelia pats Adaleyna's leg. Her reply does not seem to help her sister comprehend anything.

"Start!"

Leah and Liam go into a fighting stance. Leah makes tree roots come out of the ground. But the two sisters don't move. "So!?" Leah shouts impatiently. Adaleyna shrugs with her shoulders as Ophelia does the same with her hands.

A groan is heard next to Summer and me. We look and see Bailey sitting down next to us. "That was fast, you seem to be awake now. Quick question, what's your pendant? You don't seem to use it very much," Summer interrogates him.

"It's a microphone, so what do you think?"

"Oh, jeez. You're not allowed to have a microphone with you?" 

"No, I can. I just need to find one. But what's the point? And Daffy has a guitar pendant. How do you expect him to carry a guitar around?" Daffy glances at him before plopping down next to him. 

"Maybe you should go ask Ophelia for a trade or something. She seems to have some,"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever,"

I try watching but it's difficult when no one is doing anything and a discussion is being had with me between the speakers.

"Do something! Or I will!" Leah huffs. Adaleyna looks at her sister who seems to be daydreaming. "Fine-" she starts but is interrupted by her own scream. It seems Teddy has finally made his move. He jumps onto her from behind. She stumbles a bit and attempts to get her footing while Liam tries to take the bear off her. Ophelia rushes in, grabs the bear and slams her hand with the bear into him. Leah turns to attack with tree magic but receives a kick in the face. She falls back.

Liam makes his fist fiery and swings it at her but she ducks and swings her bear again. This time Liam ends up in the water. Leah attacks with tree roots. Trying to grab her but to no avail. She skillfully dodges side to side. The bear in her hand swinging wildly around. 

She jumps back, taking a quick breather. She chucks the bear but Leah catches it with a root and a grin. Liam begins dragging himself out of the water. Ophelia is nice enough to help pull him out. Or maybe not as she flings him at Leah, who barely has any time to react. She tries to catch him but fails.

They both lay sprawl on the ground. Ophelia walks to Teddy and takes him from the roots that bind him. I glance to the side, as does Summer, to where Adaleyna is. She's relaxing in her spot.

Summer drags me to her. "So, aren't you going to help?" she asks.

"Pfft. Help? She's fine," Adaleyna waves her off. "Either way, it's a one on one with Bianco now,"

"Well, this is kinda a nice place to enjoy the show," Summer sits down next to her and I do the same.

"I guess."

"You didn't really do much teamwork but good job nonetheless!" Bianco congratulates Ophelia. "You get to fight me now." She only looks at him with no words to speak. She moves in front of us. 

"Ready? Go!" Blu says for Bianco.

Bianco creates an ice sword and sprints to her. She ducks at the first swing and stands straight back up, hitting him in the chin. He moves back, rubbing his chin, but she shows no signs of pain, not even wince. He gets ready to swing again, this time downwards instead of across. She moves to the side and lands a kick on him. Sending him back a bit, dropping his sword in the process. She picks it up, waves it around then pushes it deep into the ground.

Bianco decides that he would start attacking from afar. He creates an ice wall behind him and starts sending ice balls towards her. She dodges them and runs to him. Which is nice for her but not for us as we're directly behind her. We rush away from the spot while she swings at Bianco. He moves to the side while she destroys his wall.

"Well aren't you strong?" he mocking questions. She swings her fists around, narrowly missing him. Bianco's eyes widen as he realises something. 

He forgot about the bear.

He sprints away from her and spins around. Hurriedly looking for Teddy. He finds him, sitting, slumping, near his sword. With him being distracted and his back is turned away, Ophelia jumps onto him, sending the two onto the ground. Her hands grip onto his arms while her feet are planted firmly on the ground. He struggles to move. Eventually giving up. She stares at him and then lets go. She stands, stretching. Bianco stands too, a bit confused.

"I'm bored, I give up," she states. She begins to walk away.

"Wait, what?" he asks.

"Hm? I just said I'm bored. If I'm correct, beating you would mean being the top person, but that just seems like too much work," with that she walks away, leaving a more puzzled Bianco.

"So, I'm thinking of putting her in the Phoenix because of her attitude but she is pretty strong," Bianco tells me while we all eat lunch.

“She would beat everyone up that’s above her and end up in Dragon anyways,” I comment.

“That’s only if she feels like it,” he replies, “but you do bring up a good point.” 

“Heyyy, sorry to interrupt you, lovebirds,” Leah says. What? “I’m going to steal Bianco from you, we need to discuss Mrs Blue over there,” she indicates to Ophelia who is staring into space. I glare at the back of Leah's head as they both head off.

The group is told to settle down around the campfire. "Alright, so us, rank leaders, have discussed which rank Ophelia should be in," Bianco states, standing in front of us, "and so, I would like to congratulate her for getting into Dragon!"

Ophelia gets cheers and is being suffocated by her sister in a bear hug. Adaleyna's face gets pushed away by Teddy who is swiping his paw to force her away. "Stay away, you fiend!" he shouts.

"Mmf! Twddy, why wre yoo so wean- oof!" Adaleyna tries to say but is pushed onto the ground and gets beaten up by the bear. The people around her laugh while her sister stares at the two. She eventually slowly reaches over and snatches the bear up. "That bear is a devil!" Adaleyna huffs. She receives pity from Ophelia in the form of pats while Blue checks her over for injuries.

"Yay! You're a part of us now!" Nero goes in for a hug but is held back by Blu. Ophelia receives pats and more hugs from her sister. Though she looks dead and wishes for all life to cease to exist.

I look at her with pity in my eyes.

What’s nice is that today is the second last day here. Tomorrow we pack up and go. How I wish for time to travel faster. 

But it does not, unfortunately.

At the end of the night, I gratefully lie in my sleeping bag with a happy sigh.

Tomorrow's the end of this nightmare.


	38. The Final Night

I shift around from side to side. Giving up, I sigh and open my eyes. Summer's snores are hard to ignore when she's right next to you and a nightmare still lingers within my head. I unzip the sleeping bag then the tent.

It's dark and somewhat quiet outside with the only visible light coming from the campfire. Sitting near it is Ophelia with her bear in her lap. She stares lost in thoughts. I approach her and her head slowly turns to me. I turn my head to behind her, to Black and Blu's tent where I think I can hear crying. Her head moves to stare at the tent, "he's dealing with some personal problem. He'll stop, eventually. Been nearly an hour now," she tells me. Okay then. I take a seat next to her. She faces towards me, "You're going to need to deal with your deepest fear soon," I'm about to interrupt her, "your _real_ fear,"

"What do you mean by that?" I question her with a frown, "you weren't there when I told everyone my _real_ fear."

"Let's just say that a storm is brewing that's going to turn your cold, calm, wintery place into a mess of a dumpster fire," 

I don't have time to respond when someone runs out of their tent with a scream, nearly falling into the river. I turn to the person, it's Daffy. Bailey comes rushing out as well to comfort him. It seems that everyone has awoken and they slowly come out to assess the danger. The cries from the boy's tent quiet down into nearly inaudible sniffs.

"Is everything alright?" Leah asks Daffy.

Bailey answers for him as he's too scared to sew together comprehensive words into sentences, "it was just a spider. It was kind of huge though," Bailey seems to be sweating too.

"I'll go deal with it," Liam states, leaving. He stops near Black’s tent. “Is everything alright in there?”

Blue unzips and pokes his head out, “... Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” People start gathering around the tent. I go there too. Shuffling is heard behind.

“I’m not so su-” Bianco begins but is interrupted by Ophelia.

“I’ll go deal with it,” she sighs, “move over won't you?” she enters the tent and the sniffing stops. Liam goes to deal with the life-threatening spider. Bianco and Adaleyna look worried. She ducks down about to enter but Ophelia's hand keeps her from entering and she comes out. “Alright, everything’s fine now. Go back to bed,” then she shoos us away.

Bianco lets out a tired sigh, “I was about to fall asleep again when Daffy screamed” he tells me after I gave him a concerned look. I look around, huh, Icy must be a deep sleeper.

I lay in the sleeping bag. Might as well take advantage of Summer not snoring her heart out. The nightmare lingers deeply in my mind. I forgot to ask her what she meant. But before I could do anything about it, I fell into a nice, peaceful slumber.


	39. End of Camp, Hooray!

“Winter! Get up!” Something heavy pushes down on my side and I jump awake to Summer screaming. Is there an emergency? Are we being attacked? “It’s time to pack up!” she informs me. I stare at her, this is what she woke me up for? I nearly had a heart attack. I reluctantly leave the comfy bag and get ready for the day and for packing up. Super exciting. 

“Mmm!” Black chirps as he eats next to Icy. He’s basically attached to his brother today. Never leaving his side for a second. 

Bianco would give Icy worried glances from time to time. “Is everything alright?” I ask him.

He looks down on me, “Don’t tell anyone,” he leans down and whispers, “Icy was crying last night. I’m concerned about his mental state. He seems fine but he might be hiding how he really feels.”

“Oh.”

“Look, don’t shove him into the spotlight. Treat him normally but keep an eye out for him,” Bianco smiles gently, “basically, treat him how you want others to treat you. Not like a child who would break down at any moment, yeah?” he fluffs up my hair. I sigh in annoyance and briskly fix it up. I glance to the side where Icy is and he’s staring at me. He gives me a sad smile and turns back to Black, listening and nodding to what Black’s saying.

I turn away from the sight and meet a half-covered face, “yo,” I frown at Ophelia. “That’s not a thing that people use to greet each other? I thought it was. Eh, oh well,” she shrugs, "so how's it going?"

"Everything's going fine," Bianco answers.

"Okay, cool," she replies, "how was your sleep? Able to fall back after?"

"Yeah, though it took a bit longer with the incident with Daffy," he sighs.

"Okay," she responds.

"What-" but she walks away before I could finish speaking. Bianco raises an eyebrow but remains silent.

"So where do we go?" Leah asks. We're all packed up and about to leave. Ophelia lazily points in a direction. "Okie! C'mon, let's go!"

We leave as we had entered, lines of pairs or threes with Ophelia in front.

We have reached the staffs' cabin. We wait there, eat sandwiches provided as lunch. Once every group has appeared, some taking a lot longer, we're rounded into the buses. Sitting arrangements remain mostly the same but Icy and Black have swapped. So Black is with Blue and Icy is, unfortunately, with Ophelia. Which normally would have caused lots of bickering and problems but they somehow have enough self control to not mutter a word to each other.

I let out a peaceful sigh, so quie- nevermind. Summer and Adaleyna are back to singing their never ending songs. Bianco chuckles at my suffering, "at least they're happy. Did you enjoy camp?"

"I gained minimal enjoyment. Not sure how one can enjoy getting kidnapped through nearly drowning," I snappily answer.

"Well, look on the bright side, we're not dead nor tied up,"

"Isn't that just _lovely_."

He simply smiles and ruffs up my hair, again. I glare at him as he laughs, "sorry, sorry. I can't help it. I won't do it again, I swear!" I glare in response.

Silence falls between the two of us. Which I quite enjoy. But he elbows me and leans over and whispers, “look at the two of them,” I move forwards and look at where he’s indicating. Ophelia and Icy are sitting a row behind us, on the other side of the bus aisle. When I look at them, Icy has his head leaning against her shoulder, sleeping. While a book is in Ophelia's lap, being flipped. She reads from it as her left hand runs through his hair. She glances up and waves with her other hand while the pages of the book are turned. I lean up and see bear ears behind the book. Okay then… .

When Icy wakes up, the bus gets louder as the two get into an argument over him looking cute when he sleeps. He says no while Ophelia says yes. Teddy even has a say, he begrudgingly agrees with Icy. The teachers and other students couldn’t get them to stop. Nobody can unless they are dragged away from each other.

Luckily, we don’t have to listen to them argue for much longer. The bus ride ends and we’re left in front of the school. With our bags and nothing else. The teachers gleefully bounce inside, happy to get away from the two. Speaking of them, they’re being kept apart from each other.

“Yay, home time!” Nero bubbles.

“How can you be so happy?” Bianco whispers to himself. 

We begin walking out of the school grounds. The rank leaders, aside from Bianco, have left. On the sidewalk, an expensive car pulls up where the buses once were. It parks and a guy gets out. He looks about the same age as us, maybe a year or two older. He has brown hair, kept neat through the use of wind, and blue eyes, that match Nero’s natural eyes. Bianco and Blu tense up at the sight of the car and even more so when the guy gets out. His eyes flow between each of us, though they remain longer on me and Summer before he puts a smile on his face.

“Bianco!” he goes, spreading his arms slightly. Bianco takes a few steps back, disgust visible on his face, “oh, _dear_ brother of mine,” he has another?

“You have another brother?” Summer exclaims, “Oo, oo! Let me guess what your name is! Uh, what’s brown in Italian?”

“Marrone,” Ophelia nonchalantly answers.

“Thanks! Your name is Marrone!” 

“Aren’t you just bubbly?” he gives a condescending smile and stares at her, his eyes wandering up and down her form, “but no, it’s Verde,”

“Sure don’t look it,” I state. His smile grows bigger at the sight of me. Bianco moves in front of me and Summer.

“Well, _Verde_ ,” he spits, “what are you doing here? Highly doubt you’ve seen good and decided to pick us up to show nonexistent love in your cold, dead heart.” 

“Your words wound me, dear brother,” Verde acts wounded like he was stabbed in the heart. “But you see, I was wondering if you wanted to face Mother and Father, especially after your… incident at the camp,”

Bianco cranks his head, “what is that supposed to mean? I don’t recall any ‘incident’ at camp.”

“Oh, I’m sure you don’t. Wouldn’t want Mother and Father to hear what a disgrace their sons are. Being beaten by some low life criminals. But don’t fret, you don’t need to tell them. They already know. One of them managed to escape, in the hospital now. He was found muttering to himself, ‘monster’ or something. Though he managed to get the story out, taking longer than necessary but still,” Verde grins. Ophelia mutters quietly to herself something along the lines of missing someone but Bianco and Verde don’t appear to have heard.

“If I were you, I would be ashamed to even show my face,” he laughs to himself. He spins around but looks back at Bianco to say, “Oh, yes. Before I leave, have you picked your group yet? The tournament is coming soon,”

“Don’t worry,” Bianco hisses through gritted teeth, his fist clenching and shaking, “I’m sure you’ll be the one too embarrassed to show your face around after you lose,”

“Oh? Confident are we? All the other matches that I’ve had with you says otherwise. Do you have an ace up your sleeve?”

“Hell yeah, he does!” Summer hooks her arm around Bianco’s neck before he can answer. “Now, demon, I exorcise you back into your stupid car! Begone!” Summer shoos him away. Verde gives her a weird yet somehow creepy and sly look but leaves in his car. Leaving his brothers with us. “I don’t know what’s going on with you two, or this tournament thing, but I’m going to kill him!”

“You’ll die before you do,” Bianco replies. 

“I'm not a big fan of you both fighting, but that doesn't matter, brother. We have powerful people too!” Nero encourages, he points at Ophelia and Teddy, “and look at those two! They've basically beaten you and they’re a crazy teddy bear and a girl in oversized clothes,” Adaleyna snorts at the description. 

“Look on the bright side, give Ophelia the address of your house and the next sight that’ll meet your eyes when seeing your brother is a dead man!” Adaleyna cheers.

“I have more important things to do first. How many hospitals do you have around here?” Ophelia says, stealing Adaleyna's phone and scrolling it.

“That can be the backup plan,” Nero responds to Adaleyna.

"When is this tournament?" Summer asks.

"In a few weeks," Bianco sighs.

"Great! We have that much time to train," 

"I don't- I'm not sure if you're going to be on the team,"

"Let's talk about this on Monday, yeah?" I say, Summer glares at Bianco but nods in agreement. I quickly drag her to my side.

“Welp, have fun doing whatever you’re going to do, I’m going to go disappear for a bit,” Ophelia states before leaving.

“So, uh, see you guys,” Bianco gives us a tainted smile. Nero waves us with a quick ‘bye!’ and Blu just gives a disinterested wave. The three head in the direction that the car zoomed off in.

“See you guys on Monday!” Summer grins slightly, though her teeth are grinding a bit too much against each other. She drags me along to our home. Our bags on our backs. 

“So that was fun. Did you enjoy that?” she asks me, skipping along.

“Not as much as you would think,” I tell her.

“So in the negatives, jeez. That’s a bit harsh don’t you think?” I playfully elbow her. “Hey!” we quieten after that until she speaks up again. “So what do you think of that Verde guy?”

“Not a big fan,"

"Course you're not. Since when were you with anyone? Anyone except me, obviously,"

"And Cookies,"

"Yeah-" she stops in her place. 

"I forgot about my cat!"


	40. Lunch Plans

“Hey~!” Adaleyna waves me and Summer down to her table. There sits Icy, Black, Blue, Adaleyna, Leo and the other Ethan. In Adaleyna's hands is Cookies, happily meowing, “she’s so cuteee!”

“Yayy! My precious cat!” Summer picks her up, “how have you been, my little kitty?” Cookies meows quietly. We sit down next to each other, “thank you, you two for looking after her!” she says to Leo and Ethan.

“It’s alright, she behaves well. We’d happily look after her again,” Ethan chirps.

“This place is still running, how did you two manage?” I ask them.

“The manager finally did something helpful,” Leo mumbles.

“What he means is that we worked harder,” Ethan says while patting his leg. Leo hmms in response. “So how was camp? I heard that something bad happened. You all are okay, right?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. It was nothing much,” Black answers.

“Hi- oh, it’s you guys,” Daffy has come up to us, “what would you like to order?”

“Food!” Adaleyna exclaims. Daffy’s face goes to confusion, “kidding, kidding, so I want…” we order our food.

“Hey, Ethan-” I start.

“E. Call me E please,” he interrupts, “sorry, I just- uh- please continue,”

“Well, E, should you two be in the kitchen. Cooking? I don’t think there are other cooks…,”

“Oh, it’s not really busy right now,” what he says is true. Looking around there are more empty seats than people-filled tables. And of those people, all of them have food.

“I’ll go, you can stay,” Leo stands.

“Don’t you work here?” Summer asks Icy. He waves his hand as though he’s waving the question away. “What about the manager? What would she think?”

“How many times have you seen her?” Leo questions before leaving.

“Um…,” Summer tilts her hand to the side and ponders. Last I counted, maybe three times? “Not much, I guess,”

"She doesn't do much aside from handling customer complaints,” E explains.

“Thank god for that,” I mumble.

Mindless chatter happens then the food arrives with Leo. He sits down and we begin to eat. 

When we finish, Summer and I leave. Happy, full and with Cookies in arms. One day gone while the clock continues to tick down until school.


	41. A Messy Meeting

On Monday back to school, everything is supposed to be nice. Having just finished camp, we now are focusing on honing our skills and bettering the Friendship Club. Well, that has not happened yet as we’re currently having a meeting about the tournament after school. Summer and Bianco are glaring at each other. With me in the middle of the two. Why? Because Bianco has decided that having Summer get injured while fighting his brother is not worth it.

“They’re strong and ruthless!” Bianco shouts. “They will happily beat you until you’re half dead!”

“How can you be so sure about that?! We can beat them!” Summer snaps back.

“Absolutely not!”

“You are nothing but a coward!”

“I’m trying to protect you!”

“Oh my gosh! Just stop already!” Leah screams above the two. “Nero is sad because of you both!” she gestures to Nero, who is crouching on a chair and being rocked by Blu. “Nope, shoosh!” she points at Bianco and doesn’t let him utter a word in his defence. “We can have as many people we want, that’s the rules,”

“As long as there are equal numbers of people on the field,” Bianco mutters.

“Therefore the more people we have, the better chances we’ll get,” Liam speaks up.

“Does this involve killing people?” Ophelia questions no one.

“No,” Liam answers sternly, “you can but it is completely frowned upon,”

“Hmm… do we care what people think about us?” she mumbles to herself. “Yeah, you’re right. We don’t,” she perks up, “I vote to destroy everyone!”

“That’s the spirit!” Summer cheers. “See Bianc? We all want to help you!” Ophelia goes on to mutter to herself quietly so no one pays her any mind.

“You _will_ get hurt!” Bianco hisses at her.

“Your feelings are already hurt, you big baby!”

“This is worse than Ophelia and Icy!” Leah lays her head on the table.

“Would you both just stop!? I’m getting a headache because of you both!” I yell. “You both are acting like a conflicting, married couple! Now stop it!” They quiet down a bit but still glare at each other. “Bianco-” I turn to him while he sits in his nice, leather chair, “we _are_ helping you, regardless of what you say,”

“Yeah! We’re going to drag that green-brown jerk to his doom!” Bailey interrupts. A loud ‘yay!’ can be heard from the girl in blue but she’s hushed by her sister. “After all our other defeats, you better believe that we have a bone to pick with him! Are you all with me?!” Lots of cheers are incited. The only people who aren’t cheering are Daffy, who’s a bit shaken up; Ethan, who looks dead inside and continuously lets out sighs; Nero, who’s still upset; Blu, Black and his brothers are all taking care of Nero. Icy’s trying to do stuff for him but nothing is working.

“H-how can you be so ha-happy?” Nero sniffs, “he-he’s my older brother. Why?!” The room becomes silent and the only thing that can be heard is Nero’s crying.

Bianco sighs into his hand, “this happens every year,” he whispers to us.

“Don’t think of him as your brother!” Ophelia chirps at him, “think of him like a tree! **We’re going to mow him down and tear him limb to limb!** ” She receives a disapproving stare from Leah.

“Ophelia! No! Bad!” Adaleyna pushes her out of the room. Nero is now weeping more. “It’s alright, she didn’t actually mean it,” she comforts him. Bianco walks up to him and rubs his back.

“Everything’s okay. It’s okay,” he whispers.

After more tears being spilt, Ophelia pokes her head back in. She enters and creeps up to Nero. “Ta-da!” She holds Teddy in front of him. “Teddy’ll make you happy!” She places him in his lap. Nero doesn’t respond but hugs the bear. Adaleyna gives her a confused look but says nothing.

Nero eventually calms down. At least enough to continue the meeting. “They’ll have a team of five,” Bianco states, “like all the other times. So we have to have at least five people,”

“Can’t they have more?” Summer asks.

“They can. But to show how _powerful_ they are. They don’t do that,” he responds. “This is usually Verde and his friends,” he draws five circles with letters in the centre on the whiteboard. Ophelia moves Nero and his chair closer to the board and hands him a marker. They begin to doodle by the corner. “So we can do a team similar to last year with all of the rank leaders except for Daffy. That makes five,"

"Add in the rest of us and that's…" Summer stops for a bit, "like 14 people. You know, if we chuck enough people at them, they'll eventually become tired and we'll win,"

"The win would mean nothing if you sacrifice many," he replies.

"Since there are so many people, may I not be a part of it?" Ethan inquires.

"Oh, sure. Since Nero won't be a part of it either, that'll be 12. Which is still a lot."

"We should probably make a roster, then we know who is on and when," Leah adds.

"You can either have people with similar pendants take each others' places when one goes out or have them work together so the attack would be stronger," Icy chimes in.

"Hm… yes, you're right," Bianco ponders.

"Ooo! And I have lots of pendants, so if you guys want to do a trade or use multiple of them just come to me," Ophelia perks up.

"It's dangerous for people to use more than one pendant at a time," her sister informs her, "how do you not know this?"

"Uh… I don't do weird magic rocks," they stare at each other.

"Well, if we do need a different pendant then we'll come to you, thanks for the offer," Bianco states. "Now how to make this work…," he draws 12 circles below the enemy circles. "We do have the upper hand as we have more people and they don't know all of our pendants,"

"Ooo! I have an idea!" Ophelia bounces on her spot near Nero, "why not change pendants mid-battle?"

"It would mean we have to learn a different type of magic, and that can be quite difficult,"

We ponder together, looking at the board and trying to figure out how this fits all together. It's like trying to arrange a blank puzzle. Hard and time-consuming. Though the two at the corner of the board have attracted Black and Blu. One stares excitedly, the other blankly.

The ideas we come up with range from switching in pairs to separating people into groups of offensive and defensive people.

“Alright, so we have some idea of what we might do,” Bianco states, “we’ll test out what works well in the Arena. While there we will also do some training,”

“Hooray,” Summer mumbles tiredly, practically lying on the table after stealing Bianco's chair, “I never knew this would be so _boring_ though,”

"Come on, it's getting late. We'll meet up tomorrow after school again," Bianco says, people mutter in agreement.

"Remind me to never attend those meetings," Summer tells me as we exit the school grounds, "Hey, what happened to that glasses guy?"

"Don't know, don't care," I respond.

"'Course you don't," she stretches her arms. "Excited to train?"

"No,"

I sigh to myself. I'm so tired of people. Tomorrow and the days after are going to be Hell.


	42. Training

I grunt slightly as I dodge Bianco's attack. We've been training for days now. I'm told that I'm improving but I don't think I am.

So far, Bianco has decided to try and work in groups of two and threes. I'm paired with Summer; Bianco with Blu; Black is with his brothers; Liam, Leah and Bailey are together; and the two sisters are paired together, much to Ophelia's distaste.

So far everything has been going fine. Bailey has gotten a new earth pendant and is trying his best to learn how to use it with Daffy and Ethan's help. Leah and Liam are seeing ways to work together without getting in each others' ways. The two sisters are seeing what the other can do. Icy and his brothers are practising techniques that work for them. Bianco is forcing me to partner with Summer and attack him and Blu. 

Right now, it's not going well.

"Oof!" I mutter as I fall to the ground.

"Don't close your eyes!" he scolds me while I stand back up. "And Summer? Where are you? Work together!”

“I would!” she shouts, while running towards me, “but I’m being chased by a monster!” Blu is close on her tail, slashing with a lot of floating water. “Winter! Swap people! Freeze his face or something!” Bianco swings his sword at me. I move out of the way while Summer fires at him. He jumps back while I begin trying to freeze Blu. He makes a water shield but it becomes frozen on impact. More ice balls are thrown at him. Bianco makes an ice wall. Summer starts melting it. Blu sees and uses the water from the ice to make more floaty water to stop me.

We continue fighting and quickly become very tired. We sit around inside of the rooms in the Arena. Daffy and Ethan are working together to help us. This comes in the form of water bottles and words of encouragement. Some of the rank leaders’ assistants have come in to see us. I don’t know who is who, but I have seen them before during that time during the emergency meeting. The glasses guy has also checked up with us. Some of them tell us tips on how to be better and more encouragement is thrown our way.

Bianco decides to try out our current method by using the assistants as the opponents. Everyone agrees and so it begins. It would be 6 on 5 but apparently Daffy doesn't have an assistant, something about him being a Fly, so it’s 5 on both teams.

Before the match, we're quickly briefed on who has what pendant. Knowing that we start. 

The playing field is flat with no one else around. The people on the field on our side are Bianco, Blu, Liam, Leah and Bailey. The rest of us sit idly by the edges.

One of the first things done is ice and tree walls are created. Bianco and Liam then start to create water for Blu while Bailey and Leah are on the lookout.

The other team is prepping as well. Whether the five of them themselves can take on the assistants is a question that would remain unanswered for me as Bianco tells the three rank leaders to swap with Icy and his brothers.

The three brothers quickly leap into action while the other three come back and are offered water by Ophelia. Liam raises his eyebrows at the gesture. "I technically have them on me, in my bag," she responds pointing at the blue messenger bag by her side. He takes it with no words spoken.

Summer and I are swapped on. We work well together or at least, well enough to knock some of our opponents out. “Summer! Winter! Come back!” Bianco shouts. We haven’t been on for long so I’m confused. “You two, get on,” Bianco orders Ophelia and Adaleyna. Ophelia grumbles under her breath but complies regardless.

They rush in, luckily Icy and Ophelia are not butting heads. Instead, they seem to be working well enough. With Teddy attacking people and Ophelia and Icy using icy swords that he created.

“Sorry for pulling you guys out so early,” Bianco says to us. “So they aren’t at each others’ throats. That’s all I needed to know.”

Summer and I are put back on with the three rank leaders. It is so nice not seeing, or rather not hearing, Bailey shouts at people as his way of attacking. Liam and Summer work together to burn people. Bailey and Leah are working together since dirt plus plants equal happy, not-dead-yet plants. I’m alone. But it’s better like that. Attacking people with ice.

The match stops once our opponents become too tired to fight or have been knocked out. “Good job, everyone!” Bianco happily sighs then he thanks the assistants for helping. “If we keep this effort up, then we’ll be able to beat Verde!” Cheers follow in response. “We’ll keep training tomorrow. Rest well,” we’re all hyped for training and the tournament.

Hopefully, everything goes well.

Hopefully.


	43. Side Story II - Work Project

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes work projects are the worse.

During all the chaos for the tournament, our evil history teacher decides to grace us with a work project. Summer and I go with Adaleyna and her sister. “Okay, so we should work on this after school so we can finish it faster and focus on training,” Summer plans.

“Sure, we can meet at Ophelia's,” Adaleyna says.

“Wait, what?” Ophelia asks but receives pats from her.

“The brothers are working together and I don’t want to distract them too much,” Adaleyna states. Her sister sighs but says nothing more.

Afterschool, Summer and I walk to Ophelia's house, “Hey!” we hear someone scream, we turn and see Adaleyna waving.

“Are we going the wrong way?” Summer questions.

“I don’t think so, it’s somewhere over there,” she points vaguely forward.

When we arrive, we are greeted by the door of a small apartment. We knock and Ophelia opens the door. She waves and lets us in. We sit on her couch while she prepares tea. 

"Alright, so what we need to do first is research about the existence of pendants," Summer begins. “Agh, why does this have to be so boring?” she whines while scrolling through on Adaleyna's laptop. I do the same but on my phone, it’s not as effective but still if it works then it works.

“I think it’s pretty interesting,” Ophelia raises her head from a book, “I never knew where pendants came from before reading this thing,”

“I do agree with Summer though, reading is really boring,” Adaleyna adds in.

“At least it’s telling us more than that teacher of ours ever would,” I respond and get a few responses of agreement.

Now let's see here… the first article I click reads as follows;

**_The History of Pendants_ **

_Pendants take on many shapes and grant many different powers. But where did it come from?_

_No one knows where they come from as it has been around for so long that many have forgotten. This hasn’t stopped many people from theorising the origins of pendants. One most likely theory is from a secret government organisation that has been producing pendants and have been getting help from ancient aliens-_

I stop reading as it goes on to spill more nonsense with barely any evidence. Next article:

**_Pendants: Where did they come from?_ **

_Pendants have become very scarce in many places due to the rise in population and many are speculating on the creation of pendants. But the invention of pendants has been dated so far back that the method has been lost in history._

_So the question is, where_ did _pendants come from? Many historians believe that an ancient magical civilisation, now thought to be extinct, enchanted ordinary objects to form into pendants and grant the wearer powers relating to it._

_It does contradict the fact that some pendants are in the shape of modern items. But some think that civilisation is a lot more advanced than we are currently._

_There is evidence of the existence of the society but at a certain point, the evidence stops completely and makes it seem as though they have disappeared off of the face of the planet._

_Conspiracy theorists blame the government for the disappearance of the society. They believe that they went on a mass genocide and the people still walk among us but are in hiding._

_This might explain the reason for people with magical powers without the need for pendants. But they have little to no evidence to prove this. There are scientists who are looking into the people’s DNA-_

This is starting to become boring but at least it seems more likely but some things still don’t add up though. I’m 99% sure I’m not the child of a witch despite both acting like it… .

“So basically, a meteor crashed, people mined it, decided ‘why not hit it?!’ then bam! Freaky magic powers are born!” Summer interrupts the silence to summarise her research.

“Yep, people are weird but hey, at least it works,” Adaleyna says, still looking over Summer’s shoulder.

“Uh…, that's not what I got," I comment.

"What?"

"First I've got secret government and aliens and then another talks about an ancient civilisation that enchanted things to become pendants,"

"This book says that they came from aliens disguised as witches," Ophelia chimes in.

“Ah…,” Adaleyna whispers, “well, articles do keep saying that we don’t know… maybe we should do all of them but summarise each,”

“That does sound good,” Summer adds in, “our teacher should have been more clearer…,”

“Still better than Eatheron,” I mutter.

“Yep,” people mumble.

We write mini paragraphs that summarise it into a document on Adaleyna's laptop. “Okay, now poster time!” Summer cheers, "Do you have paper and a printer?"

"Um, maybe paper but what’s a printer?" Ophelia replies.

“Don’t worry about the printer, just get paper!” Ophelia nods and wanders around looking for some. She begins in the kitchen. Opening one cabinet then the next. Summer looks at me but we say nothing. It takes a while. She goes around checking each and every one of the draws. We might have hit a dead end.

"I found some!" she shouts after a while. She bounces over from her bedroom and slaps the stack of paper onto the coffee table. The teacups shake violently.

"More than what we needed but that's fine,” Summer says, "so let's continue,"

After a while, we've basically finished the project, Summer and I are adding the finishing touches to it. Adaleyna is sitting on a stool by the counter while Ophelia makes us snacks. "Hey, Sis, have you heard about Galena?" Adaleyna asks. I snap my head in her direction while Summer fumbles a bit with her marker.

"Shoot! I messed up," Summer mumbles while making eye contact with me. I indicate to stay quiet while we look their way. Summer smiles and waves when we see that both of them are looking at us. "Sorry, I mucked up,"

"That's alright," Adaleyna heads to us to help, "let's see…,"

"So who's this Galena person?" I try to ask without my voice shaking.

"Oh, she’s a part of a video game. She’s one of the characters you can play as. I’ve been playing it with Black and Icy. It’s quite fun,” she looks at me, “are you okay? You seem a bit sweaty.”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. It’s just a bit hot. T-that’s all,” I fake a smile.

Ophelia lets out an audible, “Hm.”

I take off my sweater, fold it and neatly place it besides me then I fix up my white turtleneck shirt underneath before turning back to her. Her eyes narrow a bit but she shrugs to herself and goes back to work. I sigh a breath of relief.

I glance down at the project. My thoughts wander around a bit, soon spiralling down to subjects that I wish not to touch but it is too late. I’ve already thought the first thought. _Where are_ they _?_ _Have_ they _found us yet? Do_ they _know what we’re doing? Are_ they _watching us right now without us knowing?_ _What are we going to do? Should we move to somewhere else?_ It keeps going, one idea leads to another then another. It’s like jumping down a rabbit hole. But worst. I need to stop. _But how can I? What if all of us are in danger right this very moment without knowing?_

Something slams down onto the table and I’m brought back to reality. I look up at Ophelia who’s hand is on a plate with an abundance of different types of sandwiches. She’s staring at me and I think maybe smiling? I thank her out loud and inwardly. I don’t know what would have happened if she didn’t pull me out.

“Ahg! This is becoming worse and worse!” Adaleyna complains while glaring at the poster in front of her.

Ophelia pats her shoulder and says, “focus on eating, I’ll fix everything later. I’ll bring it in tomorrow for class,”

“Thanks, Sis,” she grabs a sandwich and eats a mouthful, “mm!” she seems happier.

“Stress eating is bad,”

“I’m not! I’m just hungry,” Adaleyna huffs now her gaze is on Ophelia instead of the sad, disfigured paper.

“Sure,”

We leave the apartment with a full stomach. “I really shouldn’t have eaten that much,” Adaleyna whines. She receives a pitiful pat from Summer. “Well, I guess goodbye. See you guys tomorrow, yeah?” We wave and go off our own route.

“So… how are you going?” Summer tries to make short conversation. But we both know what we’re thinking. I don’t reply before she begins again, “you don’t think-? Like are we positive that-” she keeps attempting to finish the sentence. But neither of us want to think about it, much less talk about it.

“Let’s just hope not,” I answer quietly.

Too bad hoping does nothing.


	44. Tournament Time

Days turn into weeks. The tournament approaches closer and closer. Nero hasn't reacted well at first but he's gotten used to it and tries to help around as much as he can. Though there are times where you should leave him alone, I found out the hard way and made him cry. Seeing Blu rush towards us has caused me to dream of nightmares.

So here I am, slightly sleep-deprived yet somehow still alive from the hellish training Bianco put us through. He went easy in the first week. The _first_ week. Then it started to roll down. Forcing us to train for hours during and after school. Nearly every night I lay in pain, sore and fatigued yet I live to see another day. How I'm still alive, I have no clue. Probably a cruel punishment from the gods. 

"Everyone, you've been doing very well so far!" Bianco states. "We'll continue with this tomorrow,"

Summer groans in response, "we've been doing this all day, every day! Can't you give us a break?"

"Absolutely not! If you stop then you'll forget everything! You agreed to this, now you must pay the price!"

"Oh my gosh! Winter! Help me convince your boyfriend!"

"He's not my boyfriend!" I shout while my face starts to burn.

"Close enough! I'm tired!" she yells back. I sigh and drag her out of the Arena.

With a boatload of persuasion, Bianco let us rest for a day. The days after are full of more pain, even more than the past ones combined, if that's even possible.

The day of the tournament arrives. Are we excited? Uh, sure. That's one way to put it. Another would be that we are filled with bloodlust and our targets are our opponents.

We don't head into another spot to fight. It's hosted here, at our school. "Like every other year," Bailey says while we wait in a waiting room. It's where we stay when we're not fighting. There's a door that leads to the fighting grounds so we have quick access. Other than that, there’s nothing important in the room aside from a whole lot of screens attached to one of the walls. Bianco starts to hand out earbud-sized radios to each of us. "See they're like-" Bailey gets on one knee and continues in a voice that can out snob even the snobbiest, "this floor is precious and holy. You who are not a part of us are not worthy. Therefore we go to your hideous, weak school full of nobodies to fight so you do not taint our red carpets with the mud on your shoe. We are strong because of the ground. Bless the ground," he begins to fake kiss it. This earns a snort from Summer.

"Enough joking around," Bianco says, handing him a radio. "There are screens here so we can watch what's going on," he indicates at them, "I'll use the radios to tell who gets on or off, please only use them when needed," he breathes in deeply. "Bailey, Leah, Liam. You three are going on first with me and Blu. The rest of you are to stay here until I tell you to,"

The five enter the grounds while the rest of us look to the screens for answers on what’s going on. We can see people from the other school. It’s the band from the time we were searching for the missing Flys and went into a school with Bianco. There’s also the one and only Verde. Mockingly smiling while watching. His friends hold the same face.

“Hello, Little White!” one shouts. 

“Oh look, it’s Baby Blue!” another yells. The others snicker but Blu and Bianco say nothing.

"That's enough," Verde raises his hand, the four listen to him. "Dear brother, are you sure you want to fight? You may as well surrender now to save you the embarrassment,"

"Save it, Verde," Bianco hiss. "We'll beat you and your mob,"

They all get into position.

"LET'S SPIN THE WHEEL- oh what's that?" the announcer begins but stops halfway. Some quiet mumbling can be heard through the microphone. "AH- IT SEEMS THAT WE ARE EXPERIENCING SOME TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES. SO THERE THE BATTLEGROUND WILL STAY FLAT," oh, how lovely. The other group laughs. "Those little- I MEAN- WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, START!" 

Liam and Bianco start to make water for Blu while he begins to attack the enemies. Leah and Bailey start to build a wall. First comes the ground, then trees, next Bianco frosts it over. The opposition listens to Verde. He orders three to attack while he and another sit back.

“Is everyone going alright so far?” Bianco’s voice comes on over the radio. A slew of ‘yes’s answer. “That’s good, stay alert. They’re coming,” and that they are. One summons armless hands, that must be Alistar, according to Bianco’s information. Regardless of his name, he’s doing quite well. Practically harassing Bailey. He, for whatever reason, decides to start punching the guy. _A guy with more hands than how high he can count_. Not the best idea and Liam thinks the same. He yells at Bailey to use his pendant.

Leah, at first, is attacking a guy with electricity, his name is something like Fred or Freddy or something. Then Mr Hole comes by, I honestly can’t remember all their names, and interrupts them while Fred moves onto Blu. Which is not very helpful for him. But as long as he does not touch the water, he should be safe. The same cannot be said for Freddy. The Hole Guy, I think it’s Ivan? Isaac? Ian? Something that begins with ‘I’. Anyways, he touches the ground and makes holes appear around Leah. But she uses trees to not fall into them, where they lead, I have no clue. I don’t think any of us want to find out. Hole Guy runs to the tree and touches it, holes begin to emerge on it.

Liam is facing off a man with a chocolate pendant. I would think that it would be an easy win. But it is not when he melts the chocolate, it goes everywhere and it's sticky to top it all off. "What a waste of perfectly good chocolate," Summer whines beside me.

The last pair is, obviously, Verde and Bianco. They square off, hatred and anger fueling the fire and the need to win exaggerates. Verde has the advantage as his pendant is a phoenix. But Bianco can still hold his ground. Blu chimes in now and then to help. The first time he did it, Verde found it very… shocking. He scolded Fred for underestimating Blu afterwards.

The fight goes on and on. Soon the five become tired. “Hey, is it okay if everyone switches?” Bianco asks over the radio once he is far enough away from Verde. He’s breathing heavily while Verde is not as much. There’s a phoenix flying around him, loyally defending him. “Icy and Adaleyna's groups are on,” Some people signal okay with their hands, while others say so. 

“Leaving already, brother?” Verde asks, but Bianco doesn’t reply as he runs behind the wall.

“Aren’t you guys lucky?” Summer complains. The five wave and quickly leave once everyone is in.

“Are you all okay?” Bianco questions while looking around. Bailey and Leah sink into the wall. 

“I hate them all,” Bailey states while trying to cool down.

I stare at the screen. The new five have already gone into action. Ophelia is fighting Hands. Teddy has somehow grown into an oversized bear and is attacking Electric Man while Black stands further back and does gem stuff. Icy is butting heads with Chocolate Man, though he’s having more success than Liam. Adaleyna is with Hole Guy. Finally, Verde and Blue are fighting. A better duo for us than Bianco and Verde. Blue uses what's left of the previously electrified water and water he's brought in a jar.

So far, the battle is going well. Maybe Summer and I don’t need to go on to beat them. But everything starts to go down the drain, like most things in life. “ **Don’t touch me!** ” Ophelia shouts at Hands as they begin to overwhelm her. Icy notices and moves to help while Chocolate follows. Icy freezes parts of Hands and Teddy rushes in to take her away. She’s carried behind the wall and left on the ground since Teddy has to go back and fight. Now Icy is fighting the man with hands and Teddy has to deal with the Chocolate Guy. Black is going alright with the electricity person but was taken off guard before so he’s struggling a bit. 

“Hey, Ophelia, are you going alright?” Bianco radios. We can see on the screen that she has curled into a ball and is shaking. “Adaleyna, please come back and take your sister with you. She’s having a bit of trouble, it seems,”

“Sure,” Adaleyna answers, she rushes away from Holes Guy. He is left confused.

“When she’s in, don’t touch her, she might snap and that’s not good for _any_ of us,” Icy adds in.

“Uh, okay,” she replies. Teddy runs to Adaleyna while she picks her sister up and enters the door.

“Summer, Winter, go,” Bianco orders. We nod and stand. Summer gives a worried glance behind as the door shuts.

“Please deal with the chocolate guy, I can’t stand looking at the chocolate waster,” Summer jokes. 

“Alright then,” I respond and we run in the opposite directions to each other.

So, all I have to do is freeze the chocolate and it won’t reach me. Simple. I'll be able to fight, and better yet, stay clean. I hear the man mutter under his breath, “another one?” 

Focus on the man and parts of your surrounding. Nothing significant happens. He uses the same chocolate, over and over. But he's running out. His bag of treats and tricks slowly run dry. The grounded chocolate slowly freezes and cracks to the point where it's unusable. He backs off or at least tries to. I take my chances and attack him, this time actually hitting him. He is encapsulated in ice. That should hold him down for now. 

"Good job, Winter," Bianco praises into my ear. "Do you mind going to help Summer?" I nod though I'm not sure if he can tell. Either way, I do what I'm told.

"Hey," Summer shouts, "aren't you doing swell?" 

"I'm here to help," I say as I roll my eyes.

"Please do. How do I not kill a man?"

I send a ball of ice his way which is swallowed by a hole he creates in front of himself. Oh, great. "How many holes can he create?" I ask Summer.

"He can make a few on solids but less on air," she informs me.

"Let's see if it's at least four," 

I run to the other side of him while he moves to stand sideways. Probably to see us both. I stop, make eye contact Summer, and create as many ice balls as I can. She does the same but with fireballs. At first, the plan didn't go well since only two were needed to protect him, apparently. But these holes were bigger so to eat up more. We continue to shoot, hoping that something would happen. And something did. The holes begin to shake, contorting weirdly. He starts to panic and tries to flee but Summer can get to him through the use of fire and legs. I breathe a sigh of relief. Tiredness emerges.

"Winter, Summer, come back, Blu and I will take care of the rest," Bianco says. We both go back into the room. "You three, are you going alright?"

"Kind of? Starting to feel exhausted," Icy answers for him and his brothers.

"Swap with the others then,"

The original group heads out and keeps fighting. Summer and I spot Ophelia curled up in the corner, hugging a regular-sized Teddy. "Hey, are you okay?" Summer crouches down and asks softly questions.

“She’s going to be fine,” a voice answers for her. We turn and see Icy standing behind us, “leave her alone and she’ll feel better faster,”

“Are you sure?” Summer stands up and eyes him down.

“I would say so. He’s the only one who’s actually met her before she came here,” Adaleyna chimes in. I swear that I heard Ophelia mumble ‘sadly’ but Summer doesn’t seem to have caught it. Adaleyna gives Ophelia a worried glance and Icy blankly stares at her.

Summer sighs, “if you say so,” she looks behind her then walks away. I’m about to go too but I hear the girl mutter ‘liar’ under her breath. This time no one reacts.

We sit around in silence. Black has taken it upon himself to cheer her up despite his brother telling him to leave her alone. Icy sighs to himself for the umpteenth time. His routine is sighing, glancing at Ophelia for a bit, look away then back to sighing. He eventually gets up and moves to her. “I’ll take you out to buy ice cream,” he whispers.

She peeks out from her giant shell of a jacket, she gives him a suspicious look, “and…?”

“And I’ll take you to the movies,”

“Movies?” she asks, he then goes on to explain what it is. “Okay~!” she lunges at him into a hug. She begins to shake him from her excitement, “can we go now?”

“No,”

“Okay… . What about now?”

“Still no. I already told you later,”

Black lets out a whine, “I want hugs too,” she then engulfs him in a hug. She stands, taking him with her and runs from one place to another. “H-hey!” she bounces on the balls of her feet. She stops only once to stare at the television screens.

“What are these?” she then turns and jogs around. Black still in her arms. He’s probably really uncomfortable given that he has to bend and lift his legs for her otherwise he would be dragged around.

I attempt to ignore her though it is hard since she runs into my view at least once every second. But no one stops her. She eventually lets Black go but she’s still moving around. Maybe even faster this time. Summer’s head snaps this way and that to watch her while I’m gazing at the screens.

Before Verde, while we were switching places, had unfrozen Chocolate Man and parts of Hands. The only person out of commissions is Holes. 

Bailey and Liam are fighting Hands with Bailey repeatedly needing to be pulled out of the way of danger as he keeps using his fists. Leah with Electric Guy, she kind of has an advantage because electricity can't pass through trees but trees can catch fire and the bolts act faster than her growing trees. Blu is now pitted against Chocolate who ran up to him a while ago so he doesn't have a battle with Electric Guy again. Bianco is, once more, fighting Verde. This time though, Blu can't really help. His own hands are full.

It’s the same thing over and over. But on the positive side, we have five and they have four. At least that’s what I thought for a while, Bailey, once again, attacks Hands with his own hands. Hands tries something like an ultimate attack, he makes one giant hand and it speeds towards Bailey. He’s too distracted to realise, but Liam did. Liam shoves Bailey out of the way and he gets hit instead right in the chest. Cracks are heard and the crowd goes silent. Liam lies on the ground, eyes shut and clutching his chest. Bailey runs up to him and holds him up a bit. “Get him out of here!” Bianco shouts. Noticing that he’s distracted, Verde attacks and Bianco grunts on impact. Bailey makes a rough, earthy wall to surround Hands and he tries his best to carefully carry Liam and refrain from hurting him more while being as hasty as possible. 

“We should regroup behind the wall,” Blu suggests but Bianco can’t reply as he’s still busy.

“Hey, we should probably go,” Summer tells me. I nod, she opens the door while Bailey moves in, the boys help him out. “You should go rest,” she tells Bailey, he nods and sits down. “Come on,” she and I go out. “Let’s try to distract them so our side can do what Blu said to do,”

“Alright,” I reply, I go to help Blu and do my best to freeze the Chocolate Man. Summer rushes to Hands and burns his weird, flying fists.

From the corner of my eye, I see Leah receive a pretty bad zap. She screams and turns around to flee. Blu has noticed too and sends some water there, “deal with this guy like you did before,” he orders. Okay then. He uses water to capture the electricity and send it back to the guy. This gives Leah enough time to head behind the wall.

Chocolate rushes my way. For some reason, I can’t move. Each of my limbs is frozen. I can see the smirk on Chocolate Man’s face. But _why_? Before it hits me, I fly backwards and it misses me. “Hello~,” a voice says, “you seem like you need help,” I turn and see Ophelia with a guy next to her. He’s holding a giant stick with some sort of orb on the top end. It glows and I fall to the ground with a grunt.

“And who’s this guy?” I ask her with a frown.

“He’s a wizard. I don’t have a name for him yet, though I’m thinking of Mr Wizard,” she shrugs. “Okay, go do stuff with that sweets guy,” he nods and sends random balls of elements towards him. I am so confused. “Basically, I just replaced Leah and that guy is a puppet with life or something,” she answers my unasked questions. I make a face at her but she ignores it and pulls me up, “come on, you’re still needed to fight,” I look around and see a shiny knight helping Summer with Hands, “another puppet,” Ophelia says. Teddy and Blu are fighting together against Electric. “Let’s go to Bianco!” she pushes me towards him.

“Okay, okay, just stop pushing me!” I shout. Bianco glances back for a second to me but is hit by Verde’s phoenix the next. He hisses slightly and goes back to focusing on him while Verde happily taunts him. This time I drag Ophelia to them. I make an ice sword and chuck it at her. 

Before I can reach them, Verde smirks, “I believe it is time to end this, don’t you, Brother?” he makes his fiery bird bigger and sends it towards Bianco. He tries to defend himself by creating an ice wall but the bird smashes it and then him.

“No!” I let out. He falls to the ground, barely breathing. I kneel next to him, “Hey, hey, are you there?” I shake him gently, a giant burn mark is on his chest after incinerating parts of his clothes. Ophelia stands in front of us, sword raised, to block Verde from us. He opens his eyes slightly but they seem unfocused, he forces them closed and bites his tongue. “Everything’s going to be alright, everything’s going to be fine,” I feel like I’m telling myself that more than to him. 

My hands are shaking. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do! Do I freeze his burn? Make ice to put on it? What do I do? What do I do? What _can_ I do? I don’t want him to die. Not now, not yet! Please don’t leave me. It’s my fault. It’s my fault. _My fault_. If only I was faster!

His breathing slowly stops and my heart sinks. “Bianco? Bianco!” I start to shake him, first carefully then more roughly. Everything is everywhere. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. He’s gone. Why are we fighting? Why did he have to kill him? I should have done something. He’s gone now. What do I do? Tears fall but he doesn’t wake up. _He’s gone_.

It feels like I’m about to burst. I’m filled with feelings of despair and sadness. Something cracks in me and it feels like everything bursts out of me.

The ground around me freezes and it quickly spreads to the edges of the Arena. People’s feet begin to be contained in ice, the only people it didn’t affect are Summer. An icy dome forms around me and Bianco.

I bend over in pain. It really hurts. Maybe it’s from excessive use of magic or because Bianco is gone, either way, it’s still painful. My eyes are forced shut from the pain. I grip onto my chest. Breathe, I just need to breathe.

I grip roughly on Bianco’s cold shirt. Maybe he’s still alive, maybe he’s just pretending. Yeah, that’s it… he’ll open his eyes anytime now to laugh and joke about the look on my face. I wait and wait. But nothing. “This isn’t funny, Bianco,” I quietly cry to him. “Please just wake up, open your eyes!” Tears fall like rain onto his burnt chest. “Please…,”

Knocking on ice brings me back to reality and I can hear shouting. Shouting everywhere. “Winter! Winter! Open up!” a voice yells followed by knocking. I relax more and a part of the dome breaks apart where the person is. Ophelia cautiously steps in, trying to not hurt herself from the sharp edges of the ice. She kneels down to not hit her head on the roof. “Are you okay?” she asks me. 

“As good as I can be,” I shakily reply. “But-” I glance down at Bianco. I can’t finish my sentence, my voice is gone. I stare away from him. _It’s my fault_.

She places her head on Bianco’s chest, looking for a heartbeat I presume. “Uh, this isn’t good,” she lifts her head and searches in her bag. “Here, hold onto this for me,” she carelessly chucks her pendant at me. I look at it. It’s of a bear with a heart in the middle. She hurriedly puts on a bracelet holding a pendant that looks like a green ball. “This may or may not work,” she says. I gaze outside, unable to look at my deceased friend and through the ice, I can still see a big brown figure fighting someone who can make bright flashes. “The pendant gives life to plushies. So they’re still alive even if the pendant has been taken off,” she explains calmly. I can’t turn away from the sight for too long. So when I look back I see her as she places her hands in front of her and she creates a green ball that then goes into Bianco’s burnt chest. His chest glows green for a bit but he doesn’t move and the spot doesn’t heal, “uh, let’s try this again,” she does it again and again. But nothing happens. Each time my hopes are crushed. “Okay, this time it should work…,” she whispers. She makes a ball this time it’s bigger and more energy can be felt oozing off of it. She shoves it into his chest.

And… .

It works! His wounds heal swiftly. He coughs a bit and his chest rises up and down but he’s alive. He groans and tries to sit up but is pushed down by her. “You should probably stay down, dying and coming back to life through an abnormal use of magic can damage your physical body if you’re not careful,” she blabs. I don’t really care, I hug him and he attempts to push me off but gives up in the end.

“You’re okay!” I cry happily into his chest.

“I’m happy you’re expressing yourself but we are in a fight right now,” he whispers. “Verde-”

“Is being taken care of by Mr Wizard and Knight,” she answers. He gives her a confused look but says nothing more. “Do you mind…?” her hand is stretched towards me. Wha-? Oh… I hand her back her pendant and she rashly pulls off the bracelet and clumsily puts her necklace back on. “He’s aliveeee,” she mutters while pressing against the radio. Cheers erupt from it and she pulls it out. I do too until I know that they’ve quiet down. “I’m going to go and give someone a shank. Have fun you two~,” the way she says it… she climbs out of the hole and runs towards an unlucky person.

“This has been a mess,” Bianco whispers.

“It has but look on the bright side, you’re not dead and we may or may not win this fight,”

“Wow, Winter, so positive. You’re an inspiration to us all,” he laughs quietly. I roll my eyes at him. He sighs, “I really liked these clothes, now look at it,” one of his hands picks at the scorched edges. 

“I never knew someone could die due to being hit by a phoenix,”

“Yeah, well, I never knew that you could bring someone back to life through excessive use of magic either,”

“Hey, lovebirds!” I turn to the hole entrance and see Summer, “if you guys can’t tell there’s a fight out here and we kind of need all hands on deck,”

“He shouldn’t be moving much,” I point out.

“Maybe break the dome more? Then you can carry him,” she suggests. I sigh, this isn’t going to work well. But the dome collapses anyways. “Uh… I should have thought this through more,”

“Yeah, you should have,”

“Maybe push him on the ice?”

I try to stand, “I-” but end up falling back down, my chest aching more.

“Are you alright?” Bianco questions from his position.

“Y-yeah,”

“Some help please?” Summer shouts to one of the other people. Teddy comes rushing in.

“What did you cause this time, Firehands?” he questions loudly.

“Mind carrying Bianco to the exit?” I quickly reply before Summer could.

He lets out a loud sigh, “humans, so weak and problematic...,” he mutters under his breath.

“Aren’t you supposed to be cheerful?” Summer snaps.

“Aren’t you supposed to be helping?” he shoots back.

“I’m not sure how comfortable this is going to be,” Bianco mumbles. Nevertheless, Teddy picks him up, surprisingly delicately.

“Humans are so fragile,” he whines quietly to himself. “Now shoo! Do something useful for once!”

“Winter’s dying though!” Summer argues. He exaggerates a sigh and roughly picks me up like a potato sack and skates away before Summer can say anything else. My position is _very_ uncomfortable but he is soft. Before he goes behind the wall, I lift my head and see Summer slip and spew out insults towards the ice and me.

The door opens and Bianco and I are dropped to the ground. “You are so nice,” I remark sarcastically.

“You’re welcome, you ice blocks,” Teddy shoots back.

“You guys take care of them,” Icy orders, “Blue and I can handle the rest,”

“Okay~,” Adaleyna says from her spot. She walks over to us while the two leave with Teddy. “You both are in such terrible shape,” she smiles.  
“We all kind of are,” Leah comments while sitting against the wall.

“I never want to move,” Bianco mutters.

“That is a really bad mindset since the floor is incredibly dirty and hard,” Adaleyna states.

“Ha, ha,” he says slowly.

“Black, help me out,” she says.

“Um…,” he comes over but looks around, not knowing what he should do.

“Maybe like- uh… lift them to the wall? I’m not sure how to help. Apparently, only extreme cases get treated by the nurses in these fights. Hence, why Liam is gone,” and she’s right, Liam is nowhere to be seen but Bailey is still here, huddled in the corner, staring into space.  
“99% he just died and was brought back to life, doesn’t that count?” I try to joke.

She shakes her head at me, “how about I lift Winter to there and you do the same to Bianco?”

“Okay?” Black answers. So that’s what they do, though I can slightly walk there. My legs are alive but my torso is not. Bianco’s legs are numb, according to him, so he’s relying more on Black than his own limbs.

“Thanks,” he whispers.

“Imagine if we were to lose,” Leah mumbles.

“We probably aren’t though,” Adaleyna replies.

“Was it really worth all this pain?” Bianco asks more so to himself than anyone else. He sighs to himself.

“It’s okay, we all knew what we were getting ourselves into,” Black comforts him. Bailey grunts at his words. “Except him, he’s basically scarred for the rest of his life,” he tells us. Bailey grumbles some more.

I slowly try to turn my focus to the screens rather than the pain that’s steadily going away.

I see that Chocolate Man has been burnt then frozen and wrapped in vines by Mr Wizard. Hands no longer has hands aside from the two attached to the end of his arms, how sad. He’s knocked unconscious. I watch as Electric is bearhugged and then electrified water is placed on his head, he’s out quicker than a Summer on little to no chocolate for a week. Verde is bearing the brunt of it all. He’s up against nearly everyone on the field; Mr Wizard, Knight, Icy, Blue and Ophelia. Teddy and Blu come rushing in after defeating Electric. Summer… Summer is trying her best. Though sometimes the best isn’t good enough.

Verde tries to escape and attack from afar but plants and a bear keeps him in place. “I guess we really are going to win,” Bianco mumbles beside me. Verde, in a last ditch attempt, summons more phoenixes to aid him. But he is vastly outnumbered. Yet his stubbornness refuses him from surrendering. Punches, water balls, handles of swords and ice balls all hit him. Blu attacks the birds and they vanish into nothingness. 

“I refuse to lose,” Verde huffs.

“Well then-” Ophelia pulls off one of the weird, sharp-looking ornaments attached to a string that goes around her skirt and stabs one of his legs with it though the wound is shallow. She moves down as he screams from the pain and kicks his legs but this makes the ‘knife’ go deeper in. Icy pulls her and the ‘knife’ away.

“Don’t do that,” he scolds her. She lets out a whine but doesn’t do anything, “knock him out,” he orders Teddy.

“I hate needing to listen to you,” he states.

“Just do it.”

Verde faints from lack of oxygen after a suffocating bearhug from Teddy. The crowd roars in excitement. “I-IT SEEMS THAT WE WON!! How is that possible?” the announcer mutters the last bit, he begins to cheer with the crowd.

“W-we won!” Bianco smiles and lunges to hug me, “ow,” he moves back and rubs his chest. 

“Yay!!” Black and Adaleyna start to dance around the room and drag Leah into it. They attempt to do it with Bailey but he refuses, he leaves saying that he has to check up on Liam.

We leave the Arena, cheerful and exhausted.

Today's been an emotional day. Let's hope something like this never happens again.


	45. Would You Call This a Party?

I'm sitting next to Summer in Icy's car. Ophelia is on my other side, peering out the windows, her head follows every car that zooms past. It's an eight-seater car. Blue and Icy are at the front while Adaleyna and Black are in the middle with a seat empty between them. Where are we going? Well, apparently Bianco's fancy parents decided to invite all of us to a high-end restaurant to celebrate his win. He's been ecstatic over the tournament.

Icy turns into a nearly full parking lot and stops the car in a spot close to the entrance. "Aren't we lucky?" he jokes to his brother. We all go out and I look at the towering tower in my view. "It's somewhere on the middle floors,”

“Woah, it’s super tall,” Ophelia mumbles to herself.

“No kidding,” Adaleyna replies.

We enter the building and into the elevator. “Ooo! Buttons! I want to press all!” Ophelia exclaims about to poke one with her finger.

“Absolutely not,” Icy says and hauls her to the other side while Black pushes one of the buttons.

“I feel weird,” she whispers.

“That’s totally normal,” Adaleyna says, “you’re in an elevator,”

One long, awkward silence and many wishes for the door to open later, the elevator dings and we walk out. “Look, look!” Ophelia runs to the window and presses against it. Regardless of being in the middle, we’re still pretty high up.

I inspect the lobby, it’s pretty empty save for a few seats laid neatly against the wall. There are some people in suits sitting in ones near a corner, waiting and chatting. They do give suspicious glances to us, especially to Ophelia. Maybe it’s because we’re not dressed up like them. A waiter keeps a watchful gaze and a customer-service smile on us. “Are you lost?” he asks us. I turn to Icy expecting him to answer but he’s on his phone texting god-knows-who.

“No, we’re meeting our friends here,” Blue replies. He watches over Icy’s arm to see what’s going on, “he is coming to get us,”

“Okay then…,”

We wait around for a few dreadful minutes. “Hello, everyone!” Bianco finally shows up, all cheerful and bubbly. “They’re with me,” he informs the waiter. Bianco’s clothing of choice has changed… it’s neater and a whole lot more expensive than the average person’s casual jeans, shirt and jacket.

We follow Bianco in, we can see people dining at tables with piles of food in front of them. “It’s a buffet,” he tells us. “You get food here,” he points to tables with mountains upon mountains of food, is this what rich people eat? Though I guess regular people do eat food that’s already made for them too in fast food joints. Welp, I believe we’re all 'equal' now. “Here we are,” he opens a door that leads to a separate room, it’s quite spacious.

In the room, there is a giant circular table with one of those spinning wheels in the middle. It already has some plates of food on it. There are quite a few comfy-looking seats, each with cutlery in front. Some seats are empty, for us I presume, while others are full. Sitting around the table are Bailey, Leah, Liam -who seems to have made a very speedy recovery-, Nero, Blu, Verde and two older adults, one female, the other male. They sit in their seats with an air of authority and shrewdness. The lady is covered in jewellery and wears a lot of makeup, but you can tell that even without it, she still is quite beautiful and young. The man wears a neat suit, he looks like the stereotypical businessman but a whole lot more youthful. 

“Guys, these are my parents,” Bianco introduces, “Amy and Mitch,” he goes to sit next to them, Verde sits on their other side, he’s staring creepily at us, whereas the other two brothers are sitting on the opposite side of the table.

“Hello, dears, Bianco has told us many things about you,” Amy smiles sweetly, but something seems off about it, I just can’t put my finger on it. Maybe it’s how it twitches slightly on the edges or maybe it’s her gaze lingering on me and Summer longer than others. “You can go get food or eat what’s already on the table,” 

Ophelia stares at her for a while before going, “okay! Do you think there’s fish? Is it safe to eat raw fish? Fish is delicious when not cooked, I’ve never tried it cooked before,” she keeps going, switching from one type of food to another.

“Maybe put your stuff down first,” Adaleyna suggests, pointing at her bag.

“K~!” she plops it down next to Blu and wanders off with Adaleyna while chanting, “food! Food! Food!” the three brothers wander to get food as well. 

I meet Leah’s eyes and she gives a face of ‘please help me’. I do nothing, unlike Summer, “let’s go get food together, you might know what’s safe to eat and what’s not. Assuming that you’re not like Ophelia…,”

Leah giggles a bit and jokes, “fish is definitely delicious when eaten raw,”

We exit, grab some plates and fill them with random things that we see. There are some people who haven’t dressed that fancy so it’s nice to not be _that_ odd. We go back to the table and place the plates in front of us and take our seats so we’re between Leah and Verde. The others slowly come in. Ophelia is next to Blu and Adaleyna, who is on one side of Blue. Black is between Icy and Blue. Finally, Icy is next to Bianco.

A few conversations start as people begin to eat, one is, “Your choice of hair colour reminds me of a certain someone,” Mitch says to Icy.

“Oh, I do wonder who,” he replies.

“When did you dye it? After you met my amazing son, I presume?”

“If only I could do that,” Icy chuckles, “but no, I’ve never dyed it as it’s my natural hair colour,”

“I never knew that white is a natural colour,”

“The more you know,”

Bianco is glancing between the two, so his mother interrupts him, “Bianco, dear, you have some food on your lips,” she grabs a napkin and wipes his face ignoring his complaints, Verde laughs from across the table, “Verde! Don’t laugh at him, he may be a big boy now but he’s still my little baby,”

“Mother-” Bianco is about to speak but is interrupted.

“Hush now, dear. Mummy is always here for you,” he sighs to himself and continues to eat, this time more carefully.

“You in the blue jacket,” Amy says to Ophelia who is happily shoving down one of the plates of food she brought, “dear?”, Ophelia slowly looks up at her, “are you going to eat all that? Shouldn’t you eat something less… unhealthy? At the very least, you could eat more neatly,” she slightly questions, slight scolds.

Ophelia stares for a moment and speaks, “I did not leave home just to eat like them. I’m quite fine with how I’m eating. I suggest you stick with lecturing your sons and your poor workers,”

“Ophelia!” Bianco shouts, “ _do not_ speak to my mother like that!”

“She’s not a good person,” she simply states. Amy fakes a sad look which riles Bianco more.

“You should be grateful for being here!”

“No, _you_ should be grateful for being _here_!"

All heads are now turned to the two. Bianco is standing up in fury while she is sitting and the two glare at one another. “That’s enough, you two,” Leah rises to her feet.

“She shouldn’t be talking to people like that!” he shouts.

“But you shouldn’t be shouting at her because of it,” 

“I’m leaving,” Ophelia jumps up from her spot, she looks over at Bianco one last time while putting on her jacket, “you know, you’re a blind idiot who ignorantly believes in the lies spewed by greedy fools like _them_ ,” she nods towards his parents before leaving. Adaleyna turns, about to reach for her but stops. She sighs into her plate and keeps eating.

Bianco roughly sits down, Leah does too but more elegantly. “You’re so sweet, Bianco!” Amy snuggles into his arm, “standing up for your mother like that!” he smiles at her and holds onto one of her arms.

“You’re my mum, no one should be treating you like that,” he says softly.

“You should probably stay away from her, she’s very rude and ungrateful,” his dad comments.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Bianco replies.

We return to eating, in quiet this time. Even after we finish our plate, we still sit in silence. Summer taps lightly on the table and looks at me. ‘Should we leave?’ she mouths to me, I shrug.

“I’m going to go,” Adaleyna stands from her seat. Blue glances up at her and then at his brothers.

“We’re going too,” Icy states. “Thank you for the food,” he tells Bianco’s parents.

“U-um, can we come with you?” Nero whispers to Adaleyna. Oh… how long has he been there for? She nods.

“You guys should too,” Blue says to me and Summer. We get up and thank Amy and Mitch for the food.

“I think you should stay, Summer, Winter,” Amy smiles through gritted teeth. “It’d be nice to have a chat,”

Bianco frowns, “Why are you all leaving? We’ve barely celebrated anything,”

“Oh, yes. Let’s celebrate how you _shouted_ at my sister because of your mum,” Adaleyna snaps.

“She shouldn’t have talked back,”

“Well, _she_ ,” Adaleyna indicates at Amy, “should have minded her _own_ business,”

“She’s just being nice and looking out for her!”

“Because going all ‘dear, are you sure you should be eating that much’ and ‘dear, maybe you should eat tidier’, is _definitely_ being nice and not judging _at all_!” Adaleyna uses a fake sweet voice when imitating Amy.

“I _cannot_ believe how rude you all are!” he’s starting to get angry again, Amy, once again, pretends to be hurt. “You’ve made her sad! We planned for this to be _nice_ and _happy_!”

“That’s enough, you two,” Icy cuts in. “We’re leaving, that’s final.”

We all walk out, leaving Bianco, Verde and their parents sitting at the once filled table.

“You guys are so brave! Standing up to my parents and Bianco,” Nero says to us. We wave goodbye to Liam, Leah and Bailey as they walk to their car, “maybe we should go with them. We did get here because of them,”

“Don’t your parents drive?” Black asks.

“Well… they do, but like-” Nero can’t seem to find words to describe his situation and instead waves his hands around assuming that we understand. I look at Blu who changes his gaze to somewhere other than me.

We jump into the car and take a slow ride home. Nero has fallen asleep on Blu's shoulder while he gazes blankly out the window. Adaleyna is on the phone, sounds of texting and messages being sent and received can be heard coming from it.

"Remind me to never be around Bianco's family," Summer mutters beside me, leaning her head onto my shoulder, "what do you think she wanted to talk to us about?"

"Hm…?" I say.

"She was like, 'can you guys stay, Summer, Winter? I want to chat,'," Summer imitates Amy using an overly sweet voice. I swear that I've heard Blu chuckle quietly.

"Have you met my parents before?" Blu questions, "Bianco never introduced you guys…,"

My heart drops.

Uh oh.


	46. Friendship Classes

After the mess of a dinner party, Summer and I are panicking about whether we should move to a place where, hopefully, no one knows about us. We decide against it for now.

When school comes the next day, Bianco decides to do the most _mature_ thing in the world and ignore us. We try speaking with him but he would not reply and would walk away. And this isn’t limited to just me and Summer, it’s to everyone, even his brothers. Nero is hurt by his action but chooses not to show it since today is the first day of the friendship classes.

So after school, with Bianco still nowhere in sight, the class is held. Nero is the ‘teacher’ and most of the Friendship Club members plus a few randoms join us. We’re sitting outside with short tables, created thanks to Leah. There are no chairs, it’s just sitting on the bare ground. It’s nice and sunny out here so it’s pretty nice.

I sit next to Summer and Icy who is next to Ophelia. “This is pretty nice,” he comments while moving his hand closer to Ophelia's.

“I swear, I will stab you if you get any closer,” she threatens.

“Oh, I’m sure you wish for that but we both know that’s never going to happen,” he smirks. 

Uh oh.

The two start arguing and getting louder and louder. People watch the two while I slide closer to Summer. I thought everything was going well, but _no_. They’re at it _again_. “Hey! Hey!” Nero shouts at them. “This is a _friendship_ class! Not _debate_!” he exasperates. 

She turns to him with a closed eye smile, “it’s okay~!” she says in a sing-song voice, “ **I just want to smash his head in** ,” her head snaps in Icy’s direction as she roughly reaches to grab the back of his head but the two are pulled away from each other before anything else can happen. Ophelia is put in the back while Icy stays where he currently is. I can feel his fuming aura. For an icy, cold guy, he is quite hot-headed. He glares down at his table and I inch closer to my original spot as Summer happily pushes me away. His head snaps at us and we freeze. His cold, blue eyes burn into us. Nero sighs to himself and stands up at the front. 

“This class is going to be about expressing how you feel. Not everyone is good with verbal communication, so we’re going to write down how we feel in the form of a letter. You’re going to write it to someone you’re grateful for, you don’t need to give it to them but it would be a nice gesture,” Nero explains. A few murmurs of agreements pass through the crowd. Icy has stopped glaring at us, thank god.

Paper and writing utensils are handed out and silence falls among us with the only noises heard are pencils scratching paper. Nero looks around to make sure everyone is going alright and would privately answer questions, making sure to not peek at anyone's writing.

I turn to look at my sad, blank paper. Who should I write to? Summer is always on the list. Though she might frame it and place it on a wall to 'prove that I have a heart'. I shiver at the thought. I have an idea… though the chances of me ever giving it to him would be zero.

I have no idea what to write. Do I start with 'dear…'? Maybe a casual 'hey’ would do. I plant my face onto the table and wish I was never born. Someone gently taps my shoulder, I look up and see Nero weakly smiling at me, "are you going okay?"

"What do I start it with?" I ask him.

"Well, I guess it depends," he unhelpfully replies, "if it's to parents maybe try 'dear'?"

"Oh, yes, I can see it now. 'Dear my amazing, wonderful parents. Thank you for birthing me into this world to be tortured’," Nero gives me a worried face while Summer ‘accidentally’ bumps into my shoulder. “I’m just joking,” I wave a hand carelessly.

“Oh,”

“If it’s a friend maybe something like ‘hey’? Or ‘hi’? Would that work?”

“Yeah, that would!”

“Time to write it…,” I start with ‘hey’, I pause for a moment. Why does it matter what I write here? The recipient will never get it anyways. So I spew a semi-senseless spiel onto the paper. It’s hard to know what to write but it becomes easier and easier like I’ve finished the border of a puzzle and am beginning to put the middle pieces together.

In the end, I finish with a satisfied smile. Nero has disappeared to who-knows-where and comes back with a stack of envelopes. “Everyone, when you’re done, you can come up and get one of these to put your letters in, assuming that you’re going to give it to someone,” he informs. I look at the pile and then down at my page. He’s not going to like it so there’s no point in giving it to him.

I can see people gazing blankly at the stack and then returning to their paper. Icy stands up and grabs one and thanks Nero in the process. Other people rise to get one too. I am not one of them.

I hear Icy humming to himself as he delicately places the letter in. He seals it and goes to Ophelia. He dangles the paper in front of her but she doesn’t look up from her paper. When she sees it, her head goes up to see Icy grinning at her. She sighs, “this is not an invitation for a kiss,” and takes the envelope, tears it and reads the page.

“I can kiss you whenever I feel like it,” he replies slyly.

“Sure you can, you can kiss my foot,” she crumbles the paper and chucks it at his face, “if I were to ever write a gratitude letter to you, it would be blank,”

“That’s not very nice,”

“Yeah, and neither is forcing people to do stuff that _you_ want yet you don’t see me complaining,”

“Blu!” Nero makes eye contact with his brother. He gestures at the two. Blu rises from his spot and drags Icy back to his. 

Blu picks up one of the coverings and slides his letter in. He turns and hands it to Nero. “Yay!” he shouts and rips off the top and scans over the page. “Aww, you’re the best!” he hugs Blu who pats him on the head.

“If I were to give you a letter, would you react like that?” Summer questions. 

“If I were to ever react like that then please kill me,” I answer. She giggles and chucks her letter into a casing. She waves the letter at me and heads to Leah. Leah reeks of sunshine and rainbows from the gesture. She hugs Summer but apologises for not writing the letter to her. She does her thing but I’ve become bored and turned to see Icy’s eyes intently watching me. I double back slightly. He raises his eyebrows and crashes his head into his table with a sigh. He twists his head so he’s looking at me, “I sometimes wonder why she doesn’t like me…,”

“Mm, yeah, I wonder why too, definitely not anything you said,” I mumble.

He sighs again, "so…," he glances at my sheet. I put an arm onto it so it's not visible to him, "who did you write to?"

"It doesn't matter," I promptly scrunch it up and hold it in my hand.

"Harsh,"

I stare in front of me and see Adaleyna, Blue and Black. Black is waving his sealed letter around, "what if she doesn't like it? You saw how she reacted to Big Brother's letter!"

"I think I'm going to talk to her later…," Adaleyna mutters but nudges Black towards her sister, "it's fine! Just go!" he leaves though he looks back at her several times during his path.

"Here," Blue hands Adaleyna his paper, "there's no point in putting it in an envelope, a waste of paper. I really don't want an ear full from Sally,"

"Yeah, you're right. Thank you!" she opens it and skims through it, "you're so nice! I'm going to hand my sister her letter and make sure Black's not dead,"

"Yeah, sure," he hangs back while she goes on her trip.

While walking down the hallways of the school, I spot Rebekha or whatever her name was wandering about… with Bianco. She clings onto him, his gaze sweeps over me. She smirks at me and they prance away. I scrunch the paper in my hand harder. I haven’t gotten rid of it, I don’t know whether to give this away or not. But I know who to gift it to now; the trash bin. Once I know that they’re gone I carelessly throw the paper towards it and continue walking away.

I don't realise that it hit the rim and bounced off. I also don't realise that someone behind picks it up.

I meet Summer at the gates, she scolds me for being late. Something behind me takes her attention, I spin around and see Icy comforting Ophelia for whatever reason with Rebekha and Bianco off to the side. Rebekha laughs and loudly speaks in a shrill voice, “that freak should learn to stay away,” Icy glares at Bianco but he turns his head and says nothing. Icy gently pulls her away, bidding us goodbye.

Bianco seems to finally notice us but his glazed gaze tells us nothing about him. Aside from that, he has become a jerk.


	47. They've Found Us

I check my mailbox. There are two envelopes in it. I take them inside and open the first one in the presence of Summer. She’s off playing with Cookies. First, it’s a letter of invitation to the ruins. One of the rank leaders, I don’t remember if it’s Liam or Leah, has told someone about the old, stone buildings. Now we’re being invited to tour it and, hopefully, not get kidnapped.

I reach for the next letter. I scan it quickly, it’s addressed to no one and is from no one if I’m going off of what it says; which is nothing. I unfold the paper.

My heart drops.

I see something that I wish to never see. Something worse than bills, fanmail and late taxes combined. A letter from _them_. My cursed parents. How did they find us? Welp, let’s hope it’s a dying letter if not, it might be time to start packing. I read it silently to myself.

‘ _Dear our dearest daughters,_

_How have you been? We’ve missed you both dearly,’_ I scoff at that. ‘ _We’re planning to drop by soon. Please don’t leave, it’s quite a pain trying to find you over and over. Aren’t you getting tired of your little shenanigans yet? We just want to better humanity_ -’ I stop reading. I can’t keep reading.

I turn to Summer, she has placed down Cookies and worriedly heads towards me. I hand her the letter and distract myself with the cat.  
  
“How much money have we saved up? Maybe enough to rent a cheap apartment and survive for a few days,” Summer mutters to herself, “Winter, please start packing we have to go,”

“Okay-” a knock at the door interrupts me. Oh god. Please let it be someone random, a neighbour? We don’t have any around us. Friends? They don’t know we live here. I make an ice sword and approach the door cautiously. I reach for the handle when more impatient knocks are made audible. Summer follows behind me, a fiery sword in hand.

I swing the door open and my sword nearly cuts… a blue fabric. It’s Ophelia and Adaleyna. “Hey, sorry are we interrupting something?” Adaleyna asks, staring at my sword.

“Uh, sorry. We were… expecting a different kind of… visitor,” I reply softly.

“Alright then, mind if we come in?” 

I step to the side for them. “How did you find us?”

“She explores a whole lot of places," Adaleyna explains while pointing at Ophelia. "So did you get an invitation to the ruins?" I nod. "We're planning on going on Saturday with everyone else, even Bianco agreed!" I tilt my head, did he? "So do you guys want to come with us?"

"Uh," Summer speaks up, she glances down at our parents' letter and then back up. Ophelia curiously looks at it. "S-sure, that's fine. Just a few days away…,"

"Great! Though is something the matter?"

"N-no, nothing is wrong. Nothing- let's just go to school, yeah?"

"Okay then…," Adaleyna and Ophelia wait outside for us. We quickly prep for the day and head off.

We arrive at school and meet the Graysons. "Hey!" Nero waves us over. Bianco is here too, his face is blank until he sees us then it's all happiness and positivity. "Oo! I'm so excited to go to the ruins!" he completely ignores the fact that his brother is willingly socialising with us.

"Are you both coming too?" Bianco asks us. Summer nods slowly. "That's wonderful!" She looks at me slightly but makes no comment on it.

We attend class for the day though I constantly watch my back even when I'm surrounded by friends. This causes them to raise some suspicion on me but I couldn't care less. I'd rather be judged than be taken by _them_.

"So is everything okay with you two?" Adaleyna questions me and Summer during lunch, "does it have something to do with the paper you were holding?" She directs it more so to Summer than me.

"Oh- uh, You know how things can be," she replies nervously.

Adaleyna opens her mouth but Bianco butts in before she can make a sound, "I believe what she is trying to say is that everything is going well,"

"Mhm…," Adaleyna narrows her eyes at him. "What do you think we'll see in the ruins?" 

"What we’ve already seen," Blu points out.

"Yeah- well, anything else?"

"Oo! Maybe we'll find treasure!" Nero hypes up.

"I wouldn't think so," Black shoots down. Nero grumbles in response.

My ears begin to focus on the loud chatter around us though they do not pinpoint one exact conversation. The noise is more audible than before mainly because no one is talking. We eat our food and head for class when the bell tolls.

After school, Summer and I are contemplating whether or not we should be leaving. It would certainly raise suspicion if we disappear all of a sudden and the authorities might get involved, but on the other hand, if we stay for too long then we'll be taken back to _them_ one way or another.

"It's just in two days, we can probably stay until then," Summer reasons, "look, I don't want to go back to them as much as you but we do need to prepare to move and inform them. And I _promise_ that I'll be on guard this time," she seems to really want to stay with our friends and, sadly, so do I. "We'll tell them at the ruins, okay?" 

I sigh but nod, "okay, and then we're gone. Come on, we should start preparing,"

First up on the list, finding a new house. We've saved up enough to maybe rent a suspiciously cheap apartment or we can spend it on bus fares and spend nights in the wilderness or in an abandoned house if we're lucky. I scroll through the pages of housing. Something is nagging me but I can’t think of what.

Either way, I have a bad feeling about this.


	48. The Ruins

Summer and I have been having our eyes everywhere in the past two days. Our friends are starting to get worried.

Icy picks us up on the day and we go to the ruins again. I wonder what new things we can find there, it's just stones and fallen buildings. The car is filled with chatter, it's happy though I feel not for long. 

Summer and I haven't told them about us leaving, at least not yet. I'm dreading it and I'm not confident with the need to tell them. I would feel terrible if they knew but worse if they didn't and we just vanished one day. Summer is indecisive too but she's more determined about telling than I'll ever be. 

We arrive at the camp cabin again and hop out of the car. We greet our friends and then the rangers and follow them to the site.

Not everyone is pleased about needing to walk through a bug-infested path, especially Daffy. He's practically glued to Bailey’s arm.

"And here we are," the ranger announces and we enter a clearing of the old ruins. 

Nothing much has changed aside from more people and markers placed here and there. We're waved over to a group of adults.

“Welcome!” a lady smiles, “you must be the group who found this place! Doesn’t it look wonderful?”

“Uh… sure, yeah,” Adaleyna mumbles to her and glances around.

“It’s okay if you don’t see it as important. You can go wander around,” 

“Have you found anything about the people who lived here?” Liam asks, Icy seems to perk up at the question. I ignore what she says and walk around as do some other people.

Hm… .

This place is still as boring as usual. Summer comes closer to me, “I think I’m going to tell them,” she whispers to me. I sigh but do not protest. “But- uh- maybe after everyone has had fun and stuff, you know? Don’t want to spoil the mood…,” 

“Mhm,” I mindlessly reply. 

I check out the statue again, picking off where I was before. Nothing stands out too much. I pace around the village. Not really caring too much about what’s around. Probably a reason why I don’t realise that people are beginning to disappear. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

I spot something out of the corner of my eye. I head to it. Huh, it’s a mural but nothing like the other ones scattered around containing nothing but dragons and flowers.

I hear Summer in the background, “Hey, guys? I need to talk to you,” I distract myself by analyzing the illustration.

It’s of two women facing each other. They both have long hair and wearing clothes that I wouldn’t have assumed existed at the time. Two oversized wings sprout from the backs of the two.

“See… ah, how do I word this?”

One is very… blue. She has bright blue hair and eyes. She wears a blue dress and one of her wings is black while the other is white. Floating above her hand is a blue rose.

“Well… Winter and I have to… move,”

The other has purple hair and eyes and wears a coat. Her wings are a mixture of blue and purple in both wings. Similar to the rose, there’s a purple lily hovering above her hands.

“I’m not so sure about that…,” I think Bianco replies.

I bend in closer. Now that I think about it… this lady looks like-

I hear people screaming. My heart drops. I quickly spin around.

But it’s too late.

Hot, fiery magic hits me in the face.

I see a figure coated in white standing next to a brown-haired man.

I fall, blacking out nearly immediate.

_This is starting to get repetitive._


	49. Fears That Must be Faced

My head feels heavy. My limbs are outstretched yet I can’t move them closer to my figure. I groggily open my eyes slowly. Bright objects lie ahead of me, behind them is a dull grey. Actually… I think that’s the ceiling, the blinding lights appear shakily before my vision focuses a bit more. Whatever I’m lying on is hard and uncomfortable. My back is starting to ache from it. I turn my head to my left and see Summer in a position that’s probably similar to mine. She’s still asleep. I look to my other side and see my friends chained to a wall. Some of their eyes are open while others are still unconscious.

Something doesn’t feel right… .

My eyes sluggishly shut.

Wait.

They dart open.

Something _isn’t_ right.

I attempt to lift my limbs but to no avail, they’re cuffed onto the table that I’m lying on. This means- Oh no. No. No. No. No. Please don’t be what I think it means.

“Winter?” I hear someone call my name, I look to the side and see Leah staring worriedly at me. “Are you feeling okay?” I don’t have time to reply when the door opens.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty!” it’s Verde. I mentally sigh to myself. I’m not sure if this is good or bad. He walks towards me and peers down, “No wonder my brother has taken an interest in you! Isn’t that right, Bianco?” he twists his head and I tilt my head forwards to see Bianco… standing by the doorway… not chained like everyone else. He doesn’t make eye contact with me and when he does glance my way I can only see guilt in his eyes but he promptly hides it so that his eyes are an emotionless void. He says nothing to his brother.

“Brother! Help us!” Nero cries. Bianco clenches his fist and turns his head away. 

Verde chuckles and goes to Nero. “Brother? What brother? Are you talking about Bianco? I never knew that Bianco saw you as a brother. At least he has the best brother in the world now; that’s _me_ ,” he snarls. “But it would make sense that he’s on _my_ side now. After all, you _are_ pathetic and weak. Both of you are,” he forces Blu into the conversation.

“You’re a scumbag,” Blu spits.

“Like I care,” he roughly kicks Blu in the stomach and stomps on Nero’s head. “It seems that I have stepped on some filth. I’m going to go change shoes. But before that-” he walks to a spot where I cannot see. "Are you going to speak?" I hear panicked movement in response. "I said speak!"

"Leave him alone! He's just a child!" Adaleyna shouts, others voice their anguish as well.

"Tch," he sighs loudly to himself but walks away from the kid. He heads to Bianco and places a hand on his shoulder, “have fun with them but do remember that Mother, Father and… our special guests expect them all in one piece, or at least most of them," he chuckles before leaving.

"So," I address Bianco but he remains silent and doesn't move. "Nice to know that you're a dirty traitor," I hiss. "How long have you been planning for?" 

No answer. 

"To think that I saw you as a friend," 

Still nothing. I narrow my eyes at him. If that's how he's going to be, then so be it.

No one else speaks and the room is dead silent aside from clothes ruffling because of the child. I've long since given up on moving. Something is stopping me from using my powers and I have a feeling of _who_ has done it. 

I shut my eyes. _Don't panic, don't panic_. I hear whispering then crumpling and something hitting someone then the floor. I open my eyes and see Bianco picking up a wrecked piece of paper. He straightens it, reads it then looks at me. His eyes are filled with sadness and guilt but I don’t believe he actually feels them. He's nothing but a backstabbing prick. His gaze turns to the people chained, then to the child before swiftly settling on the floor. I go back to calming myself down with my eyes shut.

"I'm sorry," I faintly hear. "I just- I shouldn't have done this-" I watch Bianco with disgust in my eyes.

"But you did," Ophelia points out, "and here we are. It's too late to go back,"

"I just-" she elbows Icy while Bianco talks.

"You know your family -your parents- aren't going to love you more because of this-" Icy gets interrupted by Bianco.

"They do love me!" He roars, "you wouldn't understand the pain I've been through to get to where I am, _you_ don't know what it's like to have parents because you don't have any!" 

Icy shuts up.

"And _you_ don't understand what it's like living in the shadow of your brothers and living with people who pretend you don't exist!" Blu shouts. " _You_ act like _you're_ being dealt the worst of the worst hands yet you've never thought about _us_ ," he gestures at himself and Nero. 

This time Bianco goes quiet.

"Look, can we just agree that we've had either sucky parents, no parents or terrible family problems?" Adaleyna cuts in. Her sister hmms in agreement. She whispers to Nero, who’s beside her. He nods slowly like he’s registering what she just said.

Summer grunts and her eyes flutter open. She tries to get up but fails. Then she panics, pulling on the bands but nothing happens. She breathes heavily but stops and looks at me. Nervousness is written all over her face. I attempt to give her a reassuring smile but it has the opposite effect. 

“Brother? Please can you help us? You’ve done bad things but that’s okay, you can help us,” Nero says. Summer frowns at Bianco.

He looks at him, “I-”

“Seriously? You?” Summer interrupts, “what happened to being friends and stuff? Was that all a lie? I can’t believe I trusted you!” 

He replies with silence.

“Um-" Nero picks up from where he was, "I always thought of the club as one big, happy family that we could never have at home,” Nero sighs to himself. “But I guess you never saw the same…,”

“That’s not-” he stops, “I just-” Ophelia mutters to Icy and they play a whisper train of sorts.

“Yeah, a family. Just with more siblings and stuff,” Icy speaks up.

“You don’t need to have a family to feel love,” Leah chimes in.

“Especially since you have Winter,” Summer mumbles. I glare at her but at least Bianco doesn’t hear it.

"We're here for you, Bianco, but we need you here for us," Adaleyna says.

"I always have respected you. I always thought you had everything that I didn't. But I don't think I can view you in the same light anymore," Bailey sneers. He indicates to the corner with the child. "Do you really want to support these child abusers?"

"This family of ours is one that, similar to you, I could never have had with my own parents," Ophelia adds in. She, again, elbows Icy and gives him a look.

He hesitates but doesn’t say anything at first, she shakes her head with a disappointed sigh. "Look, Bianco, you've done terrible things and you can fix all of it. Just-"

"Oh, I wouldn't think so," a cruel female voice laughs. 

Chills crawl up my spine and my heart stops.

Please no… .

I move my head to see at the entrance.

It’s _them_.

“What’s with that face?” my supposed-mother snarls. Next to her stands my deadbeat father. "I would have thought you would be happy to see us,"

We respond with nothing but furious gazes.

"Dears, don't be like that," they're now besides Bianco, "and as for you, don't listen to them. They don't appreciate your talents like we do," she places a hand on his shoulder. Disgusting. Bianco thanks them and promptly leaves, Ophelia sighs loudly and mutters under her breath. "Now who are these? Your friends? It's so nice to finally meet them. You don't talk much about them or anyone else for that matter,"

"Look, just cut the facade and do whatever it is you're going to do to us and leave them alone," Summer hisses at her. I applaud her confidence… and stupidity.

They laugh.

"This is for the good of society, we're finally able to figure out why you both are so _unique_ where your father and I are not. Of course, if you don't obey us there will be consequences that your friends will face and if push comes to shove, we'll use this little fellow here," I can’t see who she's talking about but I can guess.

"Honey, it's not going to be that bad. A few experiments here and there-" Father speaks.

"We're your _children_ not lab rats!" Summer exasperates.

“So you still see us as your parents?” he asks. Summer does not reply.

They approach us. Picking at our choice of clothing, our hair, every part of us possible. I feel exposed despite having everything hidden. They ‘tch’ every now and then, with a frown on their face while looking at certain parts. Mother dearest especially does not like our new hair colour. They look nothing like hers even before we dyed the tips. Hers is brown while ours are white and blue, and red and orange. In hindsight, we probably should have dyed it to a more ‘natural’ colour. But it’s too late now. If we’re lucky, we can escape after a few years of torture and be on the run again. 

But.

I glance at our friends and think of the child wherever he could possibly be. They might have to be left behind. The group would be too big to escape easily and undetected, let alone with a kid. They might be, and kind of already have been, used to get leverage on us too… .

After a while, our parents become bored and leave us to ‘get their tools’. I sigh. This is going to be painful… .

I shut my eyes, binding farewell to peace. But I'm distracted with whisperings. I open my eyes and see my friends muttering things. Maybe wishing each other a better life… or planning. Please let them come up with a plan. I certainly can't think of one much less tell them in secret. 

Bianco decides to show his annoying head again. This time we're prepared. Or at least, they are.

"Brother, please will you undo our chains?" Nero questions with big puppy dog eyes.

No response.

"Bianco, will you be a good friend and help us?" Icy tries.

Still no response.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to us,” I sigh.

He looks at me sadly.

“Forget about him. Clearly family isn’t as important as he says we are,” Blu scoffs. He turns his head away, no longer able to stare at his once-loving brother.

“But-” Bianco finally starts.

“Leave us alone already. At least Verde doesn’t shove the fact that he’s free and we’re not into our faces by standing and doing nothing,” Blu hisses.

I can’t be stuffed to listen to whatever else they say. From what I can gather from the snippets I hear when tuning in, it's Bianco trying to speak while Blu refuses to let him and adds on more insults to his injury. While they speak, I focus on one of the bands around my wrist. I attempt to freeze it but to no avail. I have no pendant on me so I’m trying to use my powers but whenever I try, the band lights up. It’s magic proof, I realise, of course, it is. One of the first ‘discoveries’ that my ‘parents’ made, a material that stops all kinds of magic, organic or from pendants. 

From my view, I see a hand reach towards me. I try to move away, but obviously, I can’t go anywhere. Bianco looks at the band. He attempts to freeze it but nothing happens. “I have a sharp knife on me,” Ophelia speaks. He slowly turns to her, “but you should probably hurry? We don’t know when they'll come back.” which snaps him out of his daze. He rushes to her and fidgets with one of her ornaments, attached to a string, that’s apparently a knife. He manages to break the string and the knives clatter to the ground but is ushered back to me. He cuts through the metal like a knife and warm butter. He does the next ones and then Summer’s.

Freedom!

“Quickly help us!” Leah urges. Summer and I run to pick up one of the knives while Bianco goes to free his brothers. The shape of the knife is weird so I would clumsily cut the person I’m supposed to be helping. I feel slightly guilty but they reassure me it’s fine. Some people are still asleep but are shaken, or kicked, awake. 

“Bian- What is going on?!” Verde has entered the room. He turns, about to run, but Ophelia reaches him first. She roughly hits his head and he collapses.

“Better than death,” Adaleyna mumbles to herself. She goes to pick up the child from the corner.

I look at his appearance. He seems to be underfed. He has blood-red eyes like Black's and soft snow-white hair like Bianco's. He wears worn-out, oversized clothes. He struggles to get out of Adaleyna's arms. She gently places him on the ground. He goes back to huddling by the corner. Watching us with his big eyes.

“Uh, so, how do we get out?” Adaleyna asks.

“Here-” Ophelia hands Liam Verde’s phoenix pendant. “He had it coming,” she responds to his concerned face. “Let us go,” she drags Adaleyna to the door and they poke their heads out.

“Everyone is free and awake,” Bianco informs us while Nero is basically glued to his arm. Blu is trying to get him off but he refuses. Bianco does nothing and attempts to not be too bothered. “There are cameras everywhere and we’re basically under my house,”

“So just dig up then,” Leah waves a hand up.

“That may work, but we only have ice and fire and our pendants are somewhere,” Liam points out. I quickly glance at the boy huddling in his spot.

“I can get them…,” Bianco says. “They don’t know that I’m helping you guys currently,”

“Assuming that those two haven’t been seen,” Blue responds. He waves the two over.

“Do you have anything helpful?” Adaleyna asks her sister. She pats herself down and drops some guns and her knives onto the ground. She continues to search herself but comes up with nothing else. “Be careful with those!” 

“This isn’t going to work, they probably have pendants themselves,” I say.

“Oh. Well, better than nothing,”

We stay back while Bianco goes by himself to steal the pendants. We’re prepared to attack whoever comes through the door. Verde is neatly tied up in the corner, still out cold.

We wait and we wait.

Nero paces around with Blu comforting him. Black is trying to entertain the kid. Ophelia is watching the boy from the other side of the room. The rest of us wait by the door. Our anxiety levels sky-rocketing to new heights.

The door opens… .


	50. Little Child

The door opens… it’s Bianco… tied up and dragged in by mine and his parents. His mum is scolding him, he looks to the ground, seemingly ashamed. I freeze up under my parent’s gaze.

"I've got one!" Ophelia rushes towards Amy using two of her knives. We snap out of our horror and prepare to fight them.

"Galena, help me with this brat!" Amy shouts at my mother. She attempts to but I send out a blast of snowflakes to stop her. Summer runs towards our father, Noah, with a flaming sword in her hand. Liam is using the phoenix pendant, having quickly mastered it before. The other guys have assorted weapons from before, some showing to be more effective than others. It's us against the four of them with Bianco being held hostage.

Focus, Winter! Icicle swords are made while Galena stares in awe. She forms a wall of vines between me and her. "Impressive, you've been improving since we've last met but maybe it's all because of that tournament you've had," her voice flows through the vines. I blast ice at them. They shrivel up and freeze. They crack and slowly fall to the ground while Galena stands in front, now armed with her own weapon, a taser that disarms my powers. How much I hate it.

She charges at me, I dodge her swiftly. She doesn't stop when she's passed me, instead, she has a new target; Summer.

I shout at Summer but she's too busy fighting Noah to listen. I chase after Galena. I have to stop her! She and I swiftly move around incoming people. My heart pounds against my chest, I can hear it in my ear. She's nearly there… .

A body slams into her. Bailey stands where she was. Now she's on the ground, glaring and holding the taser threateningly. But Bailey doesn't back down. He flexes his muscles, squares his chin and sneers down at her, "I **hate** people like you," he carefully uses his legs to attack. I freeze parts of her hands and, most importantly, the taser.

"That is enough!" Mitch yells. Most people stop to look at him but return to fighting soon after. "I said enough!" He yells louder. "Unless you want Bianco dead!" That makes everyone freeze. He dangerously holds Bianco close to him with a steel dagger near his neck. "That's it, now step back," we do as we're told. I move back and almost trip over the little boy. Ophelia frighteningly steps closer before inching further away while looking in horror at the child. I’ve never seen her face like that before but that’s not really saying much. I turn and carefully pick him up while watching our enemies. He waves his hands around but mostly stays put.

I hear a noise. It’s growing louder and louder. Others can hear it too. Through the door, in the hallway. We back away from the door. No one knows what’s going on, not even my parents. It sounds like- “rain? But how is that possible?” Amy asks in fear. She walks to Mitch and cowards by his arm. He raises his dagger towards the door. I hear movement to my side but I don’t focus on that.

Ophelia and Adaleyna rush towards Mitch. Ophelia jumps on him, dragging him back while Adaleyna snatches Bianco from him and heaves him closer to me. Amy doesn’t do anything out of shock. “You little-” Mitch begins but whatever is hurrying to us has reached the door. It blasts through and covers Mitch and Amy.

It’s blood? Wait, no. It's grainy. Red sand?

The child in my arms claps to himself. I look down at him, confused? I put him down, taking my chances. I attack Galena while she’s distracted. Mitch and Amy’s screams are audible as they struggle to escape. Bianco is untied from his vine chains. Bailey, seeing what I'm doing, leaps into action. Bringing Galena out of action. Noah takes advantage of a horrified Summer and zaps her with a taser of his own. She shrieks in pain. Leah and Liam tackle him. Icy and Blue drag Summer to safety.

The child's sand engulfs my parents while he claps his hand in glee. So far, he hasn't said a word. "Oo, eat this guy too!" Ophelia drags Verde over. He's wide awake and struggles to get out of the chains binding him. The sand rushes to eat him alive. "You are such a good boy," she crouches down and pats him. He reaches to be picked up. She hesitates but does so.

"Ophelia! Don't encourage violence in kids!" Adaleyna protests. Leah nods in agreement.

"It's fine, Addie. I was raised that way and as you can see I'm perfectly fine,"

"You're not- nevermind," she sighs loudly. "Come on, let's get out of here," she turns to the sand creature. “Do you mind?” she indicates to it.

“Hm…? I didn’t do that,”

“But he did,”

Ophelia looks down at the child.

Silence.

I turn to Summer, “are you okay?”

“Yeah-”

“Adaleyna!! Help! There’s a small, little creature in my arms! What do I do? How did he get here? He’s going to die!” Ophelia shouts while dangerously squirming around.

“You picked him up!” Adaleyna yells back, she takes him away from her.

“I didn’t do that!”

“What a weird pair,” Summer comments. She attempts to make a fireball and it works, kind of. It’s a bit small, “it’s coming back slowly,”

The sand monster collapses into a pile of sand. Adaleyna pats the child’s head. “Quick! Capture them!” Liam orders. Most of us spring into action with the exception of Adaleyna and the kid. We dig our parents out and tie them up with chains made of ice. Verde is dragged out, still bound.

"What should we do with them?" Leah asks.

"We can't go to the police, one sob story later and we'll look like the criminals. I'm also pretty sure they have connections higher up," Bianco sighs.

"Oh, yes, corruption, the best thing ever," Ophelia remarks sarcastically. "I could take them, then you'll be able to sleep at night without a care,"

"That's not really a good idea…," Icy chimes in.

"But it is the only one though," Adaleyna points out.

"I guess if we must," Bianco replies hesitantly. 

"Do we have to say goodbye?" Nero whispers. Blu holds him close.

"As long as they don't come back then I'm fine with it," I say.

"Without a trace, then," Icy states to Ophelia. 

"Okay~, without a trace!" She proceeds to drag them out of the room. 

We follow her but by the time we reach the hall, she's disappeared. "Uh, now that that's settled, let's go get our pendants back," Bianco says. He leads the way to our beloved pendants.

We walk down long stretches of the corridors, turning this way and that. It feels like forever when we reach the room. We go in. The pendants are locked in boxes that are unlocked using keys attached to a hook that is pretty high up. Luckily, Bianco is tall and is able to reach them, “Here," he begins to hand out the pendants according to their owner. He takes Ophelia's and pockets it. “I’ll give it to her when she appears,”

He escorts us to the entrance of his basement. “I hope Ophelia has found her way out,” Nero states, “maybe we should make sure that she has?”

“Let’s look outside first,” Blu replies.

We exit and into his garden, near a shed. “Oh dear…,” Bianco faces away from me. I walk around him to see where he’s looking. A column holding a balcony of his house seems to have exploded from the side. Lying near their empty shell are piles of sand. "Let's hope those nosy neighbours heard nothing," I glance to the sides. His house is a giant mansion and his garden is bigger. I can't see the fence from where I am. It's covered in trees and plants and is distances away.

"Here, let me take him," I turn to see Ophelia gently picking up the child from Adaleyna's arms. "Hello, little one!"

"You managed to get out alive!" Nero exclaims. Bianco smiles at her and hands her the pendant. She absent-mindedly takes it.

"'Course I did, how else would I be here?" She answers him then goes back to playing with the kid.

"Uh, I'm afraid to ask but what happened to the kidnappers?" Leah questions.

"Gone. They now cease to exist," she responds. Liam and Leah give her worrying faces. "Except one," she pipes up but says no more. "I'm gonna go now, have fun!" She waves at us while she sets off. Child in arms.

"Do you think she remembers?" Adaleyna asks Icy.

"Doubt it," he sighs.

"Ah~, freedom at last!" Summer stretches her arms.

“We should probably find a way to prevent us from being kidnapped all the time,” Blu mutters, Blue hums in agreement. 

“It’s a bit of a pain,” Adaleyna states.

“Can’t you all just be happy that we’re free?" Summer questions them.

"But then we'll be captured again," I point out. She shrugs me off. 

"I'll let you guys fix up the mess, we're off to home," she waves at everyone.

"Wait!" Leah shouts. "Are you still leaving?"

"Well, I mean… probably not. We wanted to go because of our parents but with the condition that they're possibly in…," Summer ponders to herself, "uh, no. We're not,"

"Yay! The Friendship Club lives!" Nero exclaims followed by cheers from Black.

"We should hold more friendship classes!" He says to him. 

While the two exchange ideas after ideas, Bianco approaches me, "Winter, I'm sorry that you had to go through that," I uninterestedly look at him.

"Yeah, well it's over and you're on our side too, so everything is pretty good," I respond.

"That's nice. Oh, uh, here-" he hands me a piece of paper. The one that he picked up and read… the one that I initially wrote to him and had supposedly thrown away. How? "I never knew that you held me in such a way. I felt -and still do feel- guilty after reading it. I just-"

"Alright, as much as I want you lovebirds to kiss and make up and everything. I'm exhausted, and I want to go home, unpack and relax," Summer interrupts and goes between us. Not that it is very hard to in the first place, we're not standing centimetres apart. "Winter, let's go. Speak to you guys tomorrow!" She drags me away though I comply. 

After all, how could a person enjoy being shipped with another?


	51. The End, I Hope

A few days pass while school resumes like normal. No big fuss is made there. 

The news did catch wind of the disappearances of the Greyson's. Their house is under investigation by officials. They found Verde in the basement but he's apparently too traumatised to tell them anything. Strangely enough, the bodies of mine and Bianco's parents have not been discovered. Bianco and his brothers have been staying at school while the search is going on. The officials aren't releasing much to the public. But other than that everything is going pretty good.

Summer and I can now live free like the wind. And it feels amazing.

We run to the school entrance. Our friends are waiting for us, like usual. "Hey!" Summer happily waves at them. They smile and wave back.

"Excited for class?" Bianco questions me.

"As much as always," I tell him. He chuckles in response.

"Today's another day with friendship classes!" Nero cheers.

"What are we going to learn today, Mr Greyson?" Black jokes. 

Nero blushes in embarrassment, "I already told you not to call me that! Try something more formal, like Sir Nero or Master," he huffs. 

Black snorts to himself. "Whatever you say, oh great and holy _master_ ,"

"That's more like it!"

"Nero, stop abusing your power as the club leader or I'll take it from you," Bianco laughs with the rest of us.

"I'm not abusing my power, I'm getting what I _rightfully_ deserve," Nero jokingly puffs his chest out.

"I can't take you both seriously anymore," Adaleyna says between laughter.

Speaking of Adaleyna- "where's your sister?" I ask.

She shrugs, "don't know, she mentioned something about her vacation being over, the last time I saw her,"

"Huh," Summer replies, "maybe your next class should be on how to ditch your friends behind along with actually telling them," she turns to Nero. 

"Um, maybe… is there a way to contact her?" Nero looks to Adaleyna, who looks at Icy.

"Look at that guy, not me!" She points at him, "he took my phone away,"

"Well-" Icy begins to defend himself but Blue is quicker.

"Being on your phone so much is bad for you. You might get addicted to it," he states.

"That's not what _he_ said when he took it!" Adaleyna waves her arm around Icy. He leans away from her, eyeing her from the side.

"Sometimes it's best to not contact people 24/7," he speaks up. She glares at him and huffs.

"Look on the bright side, Eatheron is finally leaving," Bianco cuts in.

"Seriously?! I thought people were joking and I didn't want to get my hopes up," Summer jumps with glee. "Next up- that wicked history teacher of ours!" 

“Ah-” Blu starts, looking over her shoulder.

"What was that Miss Shizun?" Speaking of the Devil- the teacher pops up from where Blu was looking at.

“HOLY MOLY!” Summer screams. She spins to the teacher, “uh- hi! How are you?”

“Miss Shizun, come with me,” Summer looks at the rest of us in pain.

“Good luck!” Adaleyna whisper-screams.

“Miss Lily! You too!” the teacher orders. Adaleyna bows in sadness. They wave at us solemnly and walk away.

“With how they act, it’s like they were sentenced to death,” Bianco says.

“They might as well have been,” Blu replies.

DING, DING, DING! The bell yells.

“C’mon, let’s go to class!” Nero pulls Bianco to the door. The rest of us rush after them.

A smile creeps onto my face. I take a deep breath in before entering school. Laughter, chatter and happy shouts fill the corridor. 

Someone runs towards Bianco and Nero. Nero is shoved to the ground and the person latches onto Bianco. “Bianco~, why do you continue to hang out with _him_ ,” it’s Rebekha, obviously. Bianco gives her a death glare. 

“Watch where you’re going, Rebekha,” he roughly pushes her back and gently picks Nero up.

“He’s just a big baby-”

“Be quiet! And leave us alone! I’m not interested in you, both in terms of love _and_ opinions,” he tells her. She snarls and stamps away. “Are you alright?” he asks Nero.

“Mhm!” he nods.

“Let’s keep going, otherwise we’ll be late,” Bianco comments.

We continue through the school, “hey~!” Leah waves at us from her group near her locker. Her assistant is with her. “Where are your sisters?” She questions me and Blue.

“I don’t have a sister?” He asks back.

“If you’re speaking about Summer and Adaleyna, they got into trouble with our teacher,” I reply.

“Okay, but what’s Adaleyna to you if she isn’t your sister?” Leah turns to Blue. “You’re not dating-”

“Absolutely not, Adaleyna is only a friend. Either way, I’m with someone else,” he's spoken too much. Leah begins to pester him. Nero joins her, having seemingly heard what he has said. Blue looks around, uncomfortable.

“Leave him alone,” Black shoos them away.

“What about you, are you dating anyone?” Nero grins at him. Black lights up red like a light bulb. 

“N-no- I mean- No!!” He covers his face. 

Icy chuckles at the scene, with one hand on Blue’s shoulder he says, “leave them alone.”

“There’s no point talking to you, your love life is nonexistent,” Nero sighs. 

“Yeah,” Leah agrees.

“It's not-!” he shouts while he chases them down the hall.

“Helpppp!” they scream. Bianco shakes his head and sighs.

We run after them then head to class together, without Leah and her gang. Adaleyna and Summer are already lining up in front of the door. Adaleyna looks fine while Summer, on the other hand, seems to have her pride ripped up from under her. "The teacher is evil," she mutters. I loudly gasp. She spins around, frantically looking around. We laugh at her reaction. She turns at me and glares then joins in with the giggling.

After classes comes friendship business, in the form of more classes. Nero is, like before, the teacher. Today's lesson; manners. 

"-so remember to always say ‘thank you’,” he finishes. He's done nothing but talk this lesson and I've gotten quite bored of his voice droning on and on. "Um, is this good?" He whispers to Bianco who's sitting next to me. 

Bianco snaps out of his daydreaming and only smiles nervously. "Maybe try something that will hook people in next time?"

"Okay!" He rests his head on his chin. Deep in thoughts. 

We wait.

"Oh! Class dismissed," he announces at last. People stretch and then leave. 

Nero decides to stay behind to keep thinking and his brothers join him while the rest of us talk as we walk down the hall.

"Can we find something to eat? I'm hungry," Summer whines.

"We can get some while going home," I tell her.

We wave goodbye to our friends before we set off home.

I breathe a breath of relief. Freedom at last. Now one can only hope that it lasts.

And this time, hoping does mean something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of Freeze! Thank you for reading and following the adventures of the characters! It was fun and I'm kind of happy with it being my first completed book. I'm working on future works that I hope you will enjoy. Remember; a few stories close while some remain open and others are just beginning. Thank you again and have a nice day/night!


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